MAJOR WORLD CIVILIZATIONS—TO 1500

(Being modified for a second edition)

(Not for sale)

OKECHUKWU EDWARD OKEKE, PhD

2010
 Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION
The concept of civilization

We begin by trying to understand the meaning of civilization. The simple (dictionary)

definition of the term is “an advanced level of development in society that is marked by
complex social and political organization, and material, scientific, and artistic progress”. 1
This is an adequate definition for “the general reader”. For students of the humanities, a more
elaborate definition is required. For this we turn to anthropologists, the scholars whose
business is the study of human culture.2 Anthropologists define civilization simply as
“advanced culture”. This definition cannot make sense to any person that does not know the
meaning of the word culture. So we need to define culture. Anthropologists define culture
simply as “way of life”—the way of life of human beings living in communities or social
groups, which is transmitted (not genetically, but) through language and experience. A
people’s culture includes, in the words of John Bodley, “beliefs, rules of behaviour, language,
rituals, art, technology, styles of dress, ways of producing and cooking food, religion, and
political and economic systems”.3 Any community or group where all or most of the people
think and live in essentially the same ways is a culture. Culture distinguishes one human
community from others.
If civilization means advanced culture, every culture is, or has not been, a civilization.
This prompts us to ask: Which cultures are classified as civilizations? In other words, what
are the attributes of the cultures that are called civilizations? Anthropologists have identified
a number of indices, characteristics, or marks of civilization. They categorize them into two:
basic indices of civilization; and indices of advanced civilization. The former set of indices is
used to distinguish primitive (or pre-civilized) cultures from civilizations; the latter are used
to make comparisons among civilizations.

Basic indices of civilization: Note that some of the indices on the list below are also found in
primitive cultures. The first two are the most important features that distinguish primitive
from civilized culture.

1) Agriculture. This simply means farming, both of plants and animals. Farming set the
stage for the other developments in culture mentioned below. Before humankind started
agriculture, he was a hunter and gatherer (forager in American English). The transition
from hunting and gathering to agriculture is called the Neolithic Revolution.??????
2) Sedentary life. This means living in a permanent dwelling place. Basically because he
depended on hunting and gathering, primitive man was a nomad: he could not stay in
one place for a long time. He did not find it necessary to build permanent homes: he
moved routinely from one area whose game, fruits, vegetables and nuts were exhausted
1
Source: Microsoft® Encarta® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation.
2
Anthropologists study humankind in its entirety. But they deal mainly with human culture and
development.
3
John H. Bodley, "Culture", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft
Corporation, 2007

2
 to another area, usually a virgin area. Agriculture enabled him to settle down in one
place and to erect buildings where he and his descendants would live permanently.4
3) Existence of shared values, moral principles, and laws. Living in society and having a
common culture means having shared values (preferences), moral principles (mores),
and laws (do’s and don’ts and the rewards and punishments for them, respectively).
Without this, society cannot be cohesive, stable, and progressive.
4) Government. This simply means a system of making rules and regulations, and of
enforcing them. Society cannot be stable and cannot even survive in the midst of
enemies without government.
5) Appreciation of art. This simply means that society has adopted standards for the
production of art works—art works in the form of paintings, engravings, drawings,
songs, stories, sculptures, dances, and the like. Because of such standards, we might add
by way of illustration, fascinating characters with unwholesome intentions (like the
wily tortoise) are not allowed to triumph ultimately or to laugh last in folktales.

Indices of advanced civilization: Note that the terminal date for this study is 1500. Hence
many marks of civilization of the period from the sixteenth century are not relevant here.

1) Writing. This simply means the use of visual symbols to communicate. At different eras
in our period of study, writing took different forms. These include picture writing
(whereby symbols represent objects), ideographic writing (whereby symbols represent
ideas and actions), and logographic writing (whereby symbols represent words). Other
forms of writing include syllabic writing (whereby symbols represent syllables) and
alphabetic or phonetic writing (whereby symbols represent sounds).
2) Living in cities. City is defined here as an urban centre—where, in comparison with
rural areas, the population density is high, the population is heterogeneous, and which is
a capital of a sort (political/administrative, economic or spiritual). City life is
considered an index of advanced civilization because it requires a lot more in terms of
social and political organization, the provision of amenities, and technology for people
to live in urban than in rural areas.
3) Elaborate architecture. This means the construction of large and complex buildings,
like pyramids, temples, storied buildings, and arenas with terraced stands. The
construction of such structures required more than what we might call the
commonsense principles of architecture, which were (and are) used to construct the
mud hut with a thatched roof. Elaborate architecture requires serious theorizing,
complex mathematical calculations, and experimentation. Elaborate structures were
built only by societies with the other indices listed under this sub-heading.
4) Use of metal tools. Humankind first made use of tools made of stone, wood, and bone.
The period before the use of metals is called the Stone Age, because stone was the
principal raw material for making tools. The Stone Age started about 2.5 million years
ago, and ended about 5,000 years ago in some places; it continued in other places to as
recently as the last century.5 The first metal tools that were used on a large scale were
4
Of course, civilized human beings in agricultural communities, as individuals or as communities,
abandon their permanent homes and move to other places. This is not nomadism, but migration.
5
The Stone Age is divided into three today. These are the Palaeolithic or Old Stone Age, the
Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age, and the Neolithic or New Stone Age. This division is based on the
kind of stone used in each period. In the Palaeolithic era, the stones were generally roughly hewn and
big. In the Neolithic era (during which agriculture started), the tools were generally smaller, and were
ground and polished. There was a Mesolithic era only in some parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia. This

3
 made of copper. In many places, copper was superseded by bronze (an alloy of copper
and tin) as the principal metal for making tools. In some places, brass (an alloy of
copper and zinc) superseded copper. Iron tools later displaced bronze and brass tools.
5) Advanced division of labour and class stratification. This is contrasted with “natural”
division of labour, whereby tasks are divided on the basis of age, gender, and marital
status. In a society where everybody is a farmer (where specialists like carvers and
diviners are also farmers), division of labour is usually “natural”. In the civilizations
classified as advanced, persons of the same age, sex, and marital status have quite
different jobs. Advanced division of labour is associated with class stratification—the
vertical or hierarchical differentiation of persons in society on the basis of status,
function, education, and wealth.
6) Centralized government. This exists where there is a large political entity under a single
government.6 In polities with centralized government, division of labour is usually
advanced. Most of the greatest achievements of civilized man, especially those that
require large scale mobilization of labour and other resources (like the construction of
pyramids and other giant structures) were made in centralized societies.7
7) Advanced agricultural techniques. Basically, crop farming is done by using a simple
implement like the hoe to open up the soil, or make heaps of soil, and then sowing seeds
in them. This has remained the main way of farming in most parts of Africa. For a
number of reasons we cannot mention here, some civilizations developed irrigation
systems, used the plough (spelled plow in American English) to cultivate the soil, and
practised crop rotation. The agricultural systems of such societies were advanced.
8) Wheeled transport. This is the use of vehicles mounted on rotating circular discs, and
drawn by man, animals, or engines, to convey human beings and their goods from place
to place. The wheel was invented in the period around 3,500-3,000 BC. Wheeled
transport started about 2,000 BC. The wheel enabled ancient man to increase
agricultural production (with the ox-drawn plough) and enables modern man to
cultivate with the tractor. More importantly, it led to a revolution in transport. Note that
without the wheel, the only means of transport would be human legs, canoes (broadly
defined), and pack animals.
9) Existence of standard weights and measures. This is the adoption of regular units of
determining length, weight, and volume. The adoption of standard weights and
era was characterized by the use of what archaeologists have called microliths (“small, geometric-
shaped stone artifacts that were attached to wood, antler, or bone to form implements such as arrows,
spears, or scythes”. See Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth, "Stone Age”, Microsoft® Student 2008
[DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007.
6
Centralized states are contrasted with “stateless” or “acephalous” ones, where, among other things,
there is little concentration of authority, no full-time rulers, and “[t]he unit within which people feel
an obligation to settle their disputes according to agreed rules without resort to force tends to be
relatively small”. See Robin Horton, “Stateless societies in the history of West Africa”, in History of
West Africa Vol. 1 (eds.) J.F.A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder (London: Longman, 1976), 72-113,
quotation on 72.
7
Some idealists, like Marxists, decry centralized government (as well as advanced division of labour
and class stratification) because it increased the power of man over man, enabling small minorities
(the elite) to dominate, exploit and oppress others (the masses). But, while it is the obligation of all of
us to help minimize the exploitation and oppression of the masses by the elite, it must be
acknowledged that without advanced division of labour, hierarchy, and centralization, human
civilization would not have moved beyond its primitive state.

4
 measures has made life much easier. For instance, it has enabled man to plan his
journeys with greater precision. Thus, to illustrate, a resident of Yenagoa that knows the
distance to Port Harcourt, and also knows the speed of the means of transport meant she
intends to use to go there, can determine with near perfect precision how long it will
take her to get there. Standard weights and measures have facilitated trade. One can
order goods from distant places knowing exactly the quantity to expect. Knowing the
capacity of a container, one can easily determine whether it will contain the quantity of
water or flour in other specified containers if they are meant to be poured into it. With
standard weights and measures, we might add, a company can produce goods, like
electricity sockets, for the world market. Knowing the dimensions of the holes of the
socket, producers of electrical appliances in all countries of the world would
manufacture plugs that are meant to fit into the sockets.8
10) Use of currency. Related to standard weights and measures is the adoption of money as
a means of exchange. Money is a means of exchange, a store of value, and unit of
account. Before the adoption of money, ancient peoples got what they needed from
others in the form of gifts or by entering into debt (taking something and promising to
give it back later). Later, man traded by barter. This was mainly between strangers and
neighbours that did not trust themselves. However, trade by barter was inefficient: it
wasted time and one party often cheated the other. To solve the problem, money was
invented as an independent measure of value.

On calendars

A calendar is a system of measuring time. It is done by dividing time into days, weeks,
months and years. Calendars are based on the movement of the earth and the appearances of
the sun and/or moon. The most important units of time of any calendar are the day and year.
The former is based on the movement of the earth round its axis, the latter on the movement
of the earth round the sun. Calendars based on the movement of the sun are called solar
calendars; those based on the movement of the moon are called lunar calendars. A solar year
contains roughly 3651/4 days. Most ancient civilizations, using imprecise time-measuring
devices, could not notice the extra ¼ of a day at the end of each year. So over time their
calendars became inaccurate. To account for this additional time after each 365 days, the
Romans started adding an additional day to the year after every four years. Thus we now
have the leap year.
The calendar used in Christendom, in Nigeria and most countries of the world, is the
Gregorian calendar, which was instituted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. It is a Christian
calendar, and uses the birth of Christ as its epoch (the beginning of a period of history
considered important, in this case the Christian era). Another calendar that is widely in use in
the world today is the Islamic calendar, which, unlike the Gregorian, is a lunar calendar. Its
epoch is the Hijra, the flight of Prophet Mohammed from Mecca (622 AD).
8
We might add that, here in Nigeria, the first standard measures came from North Africa and were
used only in the Islamic states of northern Nigeria. The mudu, a standard measure of volume, is one of
them. Under colonial rule, the British brought the Imperial System of weights and measures. Thus
Nigerians used Imperial linear measures (mainly feet, yards, and miles); Imperial weight measures
(mainly ounces, pounds and tons); and Imperial capacity measures (mainly pints and gallons). In
1972-73, the country adopted the more widely used metric system. The United States of America still
uses the imperial system.

5
 The following abbreviations will help to further enlighten us about the Gregorian
calendar. The exercise that follows should enable us to easily place any year within a larger
time frame.

Abbreviations

BC: Before Christ

AD: Anno Domini (Latin for the year of our Lord, used to refer to a particular number
of years or a period from the year Christ is assumed to have been born).
Because of its literal Latin meaning, "in the year of the Lord", AD is
traditionally put before the numeral to which it relates, so that it makes
grammatical sense if understood in its expanded form: AD 1453. In
practice, AD is usually put after the numeral, and it is also acceptable to
put it after the identification of a century, as in the fifth century AD.
Some writers prefer to use P.E. (Present Era) or C.E. (Common Era) as
alternatives in order to avoid the association with Christianity.

Source: Microsoft® Encarta® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation.

BCE: Before the Common Era (see quotation above)
CE: Common Era (see quotation above)
Other (calendar) Abbreviations:

 b. born (year a person was born)

 c./ca. circa (about or around)
 d. died (year a person died)
 r. ruled or reigned (period a person ruled)

EXERCISE

Fill the spaces in the chart below

6
YEAR MILLENNIUM CENTURY IN CENTURY DECADE IN DECADE IN DECADE SINCE
MILLENNIUM SINCE AD CENTURY MILLENNIUM AD

99 AD/CE 1

1054 6

1215 2
1789 179
1945 20

2010 2

7
 Chapter 2

ANCIENT EGYPT
Egypt today is an independent country in north-eastern Africa. It is bounded on the north by the
Mediterranean Sea, on the east by Israel, the Gulf of Aqaba, the Gaza Strip, and the Red Sea; on the
south by Sudan; and on the west by Libya. Egypt has an area of 386, 198 square miles (roughly
988,666 square kilometres). However, the settled area amounts to only 13,500 square miles (34,560
square kilometres), or 3.5 percent of the country. Roughly rectangular in shape, Egypt is
approximately 675 miles (1,080km) long. Until the construction of massive dams in the twentieth
century, virtually all the population, agriculture, commerce, and industry of Egypt were
concentrated along the Nile valley. Without the water of the Nile and the flood sediments of the
Nile from past centuries, all of Egypt would be a barren wasteland. It is for this reason that
Herodotus, the “father of history”, called Egypt “the gift of the Nile”. The Nile valley extends the
full length of the country, from south to north. South of Cairo, in the region called Upper Egypt,
the valley is 1 to 15 miles (16 to 24 kilometres) wide. In the delta region, on the Mediterranean Sea
(Lower Egypt), the valley reaches a width of 120 miles (192 kilometres).

* * *

Sources of Ancient Egyptian history have been written records, artefacts, and skeletons.
Artefacts are objects made or used by human beings, especially ones made in the distant past and
which are of historical interest. Artefacts are not only tools. They include art works, clothes,
shrines, buildings, arenas, and roads. Archaeologists have unearthed numerous artefacts and
skeletons in Egypt; some of them, like buildings, are on the surface of the earth. Ancient Egyptian
writings were deciphered in 1822 by a French linguist, Jean-François Champollion. With the
abundance and variety of sources available, Ancient Egypt has, since the late 18th century, been a
subject of much academic interest. Archaeologists, historians, linguists and art historians that study
Ancient Egypt are called Egyptologist and the subject of their study Egyptology.

* * *

Egypt is one of the cradles of civilization—one of the oldest advanced cultures in the world
whose cultural achievements were adopted and improved upon by other civilizations and became
the heritage of all mankind. Before mentioning the cultural achievements of Ancient Egypt, it is
important to give an outline of its political history.
The earliest Egyptians were probably a mixture of Mediterranean peoples. Their land at first
was divided into a number of independent city-states. Later the city-states were organized into two
kingdoms, Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. About 3,400 BC (some scholars say about 3,100BC),
Menes, a king of Upper Egypt, conquered the northern kingdom and united the two kingdoms. The
dynastic period of Egypt’s history began with Menes. From his time to 332 BC, when Alexander
the Great conquered Egypt, thirty dynasties, or royal family lines, had ruled Egypt and the thirty-
first one was ruling.9
Egypt’s ancient kings were called Pharaohs, as in the Bible. The title came from the word
pero, meaning great house, which referred to the rulers’ palaces. The Pharaohs were absolute

9
The list of dynasties was prepared by Manetho, a priest of Egypt, in the third century BC. Some
Egyptologists (scholars that study the civilization of Ancient Egypt) think the number should be increased
by one.
8
monarchs. Each Pharaoh was the religious, civil, and military leader of the kingdom. They owned
all the land and controlled all economic activity. Ancient Egyptians believed that their Pharaohs
had a dual nature—that they were partly human and partly divine.10

In Ancient Egyptian society, there was small scale slavery. Women were allowed to own property,
and to transfer them to any person of their choice.

As we have seen, Ancient Egyptian religion was polytheistic: they believed in and worshipped
many gods. There were both national and local gods. The national gods included the following: Ra,
also Re and Aton (the sun god), Osiris (god of the dead and ruler of the underworld), Isis
(protective goddess, wife of Osiris and mother of Horus), Seth (god of chaos), Horus (protector of
the Pharaoh and the living), and Ptah (god of craftsmen).

Periods of Egyptian History

The Old Kingdom: About 2,700 BC, in the time of Zoser (a ruler who probably founded the third
dynasty), Egypt entered the period called the Old Kingdom. The period lasted till about 2,134 BC.
During this period, Egyptians built cities of great splendour. Art, especially sculpture, and literature
made extraordinary progress. The first of the nation’s great pyramids were built during this period.
Memphis was the capital of Egypt in this era. The Old kingdom came to an end when the Pharaohs’
power declined, perhaps because of economic troubles. For the next 100 years, Egypt again was
split into independent provinces.

The Middle Kingdom: When the Pharaohs regained control over the provinces about 2,040 BC
(after a period called the First Intermediate Period), there began a second great dynastic period, the
Middle Kingdom. During this period, the capital was at Thebes. It was a period of external growth
for Egypt. Under various Pharaohs, Egypt conquered Nubia, Palestine, and other nearby countries.
Egypt became an empire.
Outstanding among rulers in this period was Amenemhet III, a Pharaoh of the twelfth
dynasty. Besides foreign conquests, he carried out a great irrigation project in the Faiyum district
(in the northern part of the western desert). Egypt’s ships sailed the Mediterranean on trading
voyages that increased the wealth of the nation.
However, about 1,680 BC, invaders equipped with horses (the first in Egypt) came from
Asia. Known as the Hyksos, or “rulers of foreign lands”, the invaders seized control of Egypt. The
native rulers of Egypt lost control of their country, and a period of cultural stagnation called the
Second Intermediate Period started.

The New Kingdom: After a century of rule by the Hyksos, there arose resourceful Pharaohs,
beginning with Amhose I, or Amosis (1,580-1,557 BC), who banished the foreigners and
established a great new dynastic period called the New Kingdom. Under Thutmose I and Thutmose
III, the revived Egyptian empire reached east to the Egyptian Euphrates River and included Syria
and Phoenicia. Amenhotep IV, also called Akhenaton or Iknaton, tried unsuccessfully to institute a
religion based on the idea of one god, Aton. (His religion is the basis of the doctrines and rites of
the Rosicrucian Order of today.)
Ramses II (1,290-1,224 BC) was among the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom. He may have
been the Pharaoh when Moses and the Jews made their exodus from Egypt. However, some

10
To prevent what was believed to be the superior blood of the Pharaohs from being contaminated by
commoners’ blood, the children of the Pharaohs were required to marry their siblings. Ancient Egypt was
one of the very few places where brothers married their sisters. Technically, this was not incest, because
there was no law prohibiting them from doing so.
9
scholars place this event in the time of Ramses II’s successor, Merenptah. Under Merenptah and
Ramses III, Egypt repelled attacks by various invaders from the north, including Sardinians and
Sicilians. The nation seemed to be stronger than ever.
However, by the twenty-fifth dynasty, which began about 1,090 BCE, another decline in the
Pharaoh’s power had set in. During the next several centuries, Egypt was often conquered by
foreigners. Libyans, Assyrians, Ethiopians, Babylonians, and Persians in turn successfully invaded
the land. In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great added Egypt to his Macedonian Empire. Alexander
founded the city of Alexandria and made it the capital of his empire. A glorious new era began in
Egypt, but the rulers were of foreign origin.

The Ptolemaic Era: Under Alexander the Great, Egypt was governed by Ptolemy Soter, one of his
Macedonian generals. Ptolemy remained in control of the country after Alexander’s death (323
BCE), and took the title of king. As Ptolemy I, Soter was the first of a group of rulers of Egypt who
were named Ptolemy. The first Ptolemies were masters of business and enterprise. During the
period they ruled Egypt, Alexandria was second only to Rome as a centre of population, culture,
and enterprise. However, after several generations of Ptolemaic rule, Egypt was weakened by wars,
revolts by native Egyptians, and feuds among the Ptolemies themselves. Thus the country fell under
Rome’s domination.
Cleopatra VII, the ambitious and charming daughter of Ptolemy XI, tried to restore Egypt’s
independence through her romantic association with Roman leaders, Julius Caesar and then Mark
Anthony. Her association with the latter proved inadequate to save her kingdom. Anthony’s rival,
Octavian led Roman forces to crush Egypt’s in 30 BCE. Subsequently, Egypt became a province of
the Roman Empire.

Achievements/Legacies of Ancient Egypt

Agriculture: In agriculture, the ancient Egyptians were pioneers, or were among the pioneers, in
irrigation (the artificial application of water to the soil to produce plant growth). In the broadest
sense, irrigation includes watering a lawn or garden. However, the term usually refers to the
channelling of large amounts of water from a water source (river, lake, or sea) to farms for the
purpose of growing crops. Ancient Egyptians used labour-saving devices for lifting irrigation water
from the Nile River. These devices are still used in some parts of the world today. The oldest,
invented before 2,000 BC, is the shaduf, a counterweighted pole that provides leverage for a filled
bucket. Other water-lifting devices from Egypt are the Archimedes screw (third century BC or
earlier) and the undershot water wheel (about 200 BC). Along the Nile, irrigation was relatively
simple. The river rose gently and predictably in spring and early summer, and the water was
diverted to the farms bordering it. The soaked soil sustained the crops through the hot season.
Ancient Egyptians used the ox-drawn plough to cultivate their fields (from about 3,000
BC). The plough was also used at the same time in Mesopotamia and the Indus valley. With the
ox-drawn plough, ancient Egyptians could put much greater parcels of land under cultivation than
before, with less time and effort involved.
Another important agricultural achievement of the ancient Egyptians was the adoption of
crop rotation (“a system of farming in which a piece of land is planted with different crops in
succession, in order to improve soil fertility and control crop pests and diseases”). 11 Ancient
farmers did not use manure and fertilizer and responded to soil exhaustion by abandoning
exhausted soil and farming on virgin soil (shifting cultivation). The adoption of crop rotation
helped to increase efficiency in the use of land and, thus, helped to minimize migration and
conflicts over land. Ancient Egyptians were pioneers in crop rotation.

11
Microsoft® Encarta® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation.

10
Architecture: The Egyptians were builders of massive buildings. Their greatest buildings were
pyramids, temples, and palaces, but especially pyramids and temples. Each pyramid was a tomb of
a king. The pyramids were decorated like palaces and filled with all that they thought their dead
kings would need in the land of the dead—chairs, swords, vessels, grain, etc. The construction of
pyramids for the dead is a testimony to the Ancient Egyptians’ belief in life after death. In their
own belief system, the status of the poor and meek was not transformed after death: the kings
would remain kings in the land of the dead, and the servants would remain servants.
The first Egyptian pyramids were built with sun-dried bricks. Later the Egyptians learnt to
mine copper. With copper and, later, bronze tools, they were able to cut limestone from their hills
and valleys and use them to construct monumental pyramids. This began about 3,000 BCE. Great
Egyptian pyramids include the Step Pyramid. This was designed and built by Imhotep, an Egyptian
priest, architect, builder, and scholar of the middle of the third millennium BCE. The Step
Pyramid is believed to be Egypt’s first massive pyramid. Built for King Djoser, this pyramid was a
massive stone structure. It was a 200-feet (61-metre) six-tier structure, with each tier smaller than
the one below it. The greatest Egyptians pyramid was the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, which was
constructed for Pharaoh Khufu or Cheops. It covers thirteen acres and contains 2,300,000 blocks of
limestone; the average weight of the blocks was two and a half tons. The Great Pyramid, which has
stood till today, is 481 feet (146 metres) high; its sides at the base measure 755 feet (230 metres)
each. Another remarkable architectural piece of Ancient Egypt was the Temple of Karnak at
Thebes. It took nearly two thousand years to complete. This temple is nearly a quarter of a mile
(402 metres) long. One of the buildings of the temple, the “hall of columns”, is 338 feet (103
metres) wide and 70 feet (21 metres) long.
It is pertinent to note that the construction of the above structures by ancient Egyptians
gives evidence of the ability of a centralized power to exact hard labour from large numbers of
people. Only big, centralized, and highly stratified societies, in which there were kings, nobles,
freemen, and slaves, could build the kind of massive structures mentioned above in the ancient
world.

Sculpture: Sculpture is the art of shaping materials into unified forms of three dimensions.
Sculpture was developed early in history. The ancient Egyptians developed this art considerably.
Sculpture was an essential part of their religion. They believed that the soul returned to the body.
Hence they felt it was necessary to preserve the body. They tried to preserve corpses by
mummification (embalmment). If the mummy should be destroyed, however, a statue resembling
the dead person might serve as the home of the soul. In addition to mummies, the tombs and
temples of Ancient Egypt were decorated with huge statues. One of the greatest is the Great
Sphinx, near the Great Pyramid at Gizeh, which represents the head of a man upon the body of a
lion. The figure is about 160 feet (48 metres) long and 70 feet (21 metres) high.
Early Egyptian sculpture was generally made of hard stone, such as basalt or granite, and
the forms were limited by the shape of the block.

Calendar: Through careful observation of the stars and other heavenly bodies, the ancient
Egyptians invented a calendar in which the year was divided into 365 days. This was about 2,780
BC. The Egyptian year was divided into twelve months of thirty days each plus five additional
days. The Egyptians were the first people who divided the day into twenty-four segments each.
They also invented a water clock, which, until the mediaeval European invention of the mechanical
clock, was the best timing device available. The Egyptian calendar is the forerunner of the one in
use in Christendom today.
The major weakness of the Egyptian calendar, a weakness it shared with other ancient
calendars, was that its inventors did not insert an intercalary day every four years as we do today.
This was because they could not know (as we do today with the use of more accurate time devices)
that it takes, not just 365, but 365 1/4, days for the earth to move round the sun. (The leap year
11
accounts for the extra one-quarter of a day.) So, over time, the Egyptian calendar became
inaccurate.
Educated Egyptian priests were responsible for studying the stars and making calendar
calculations. Their astronomical knowledge was combined with astrological beliefs or theories
about the influence of gods and planets on human life. Yet they made many accurate calendar
observations.

Food Processing: The invention of the oven, and the baking of unleavened bread (hard, biscuit-like
bread that lasts long) probably began in Ancient Egypt. The Egyptians were also the first to make
leavened bread (light and porous bread made by filling dough with tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide
produced by fermentation). They allowed a portion of dough to ferment through the action of yeast
plants present in air. The Greeks learned the process of leavening from the Egyptians, and in turn
passed it on to the Romans, who spread the art of bread-making throughout Europe.

Writing and Literature: Ancient Egypt was among the first civilizations to develop the art of
writing. Writing started in Egypt as well as in Sumer in the last quarter of the fourth millennium
BC. Since writing of quite different characters, which were inscribed on quite different materials,
appeared in the two areas about the same time, some scholars believe the art was developed
independently in Egypt and Sumer. However, some authorities hold that the Sumerians were the
first to invent a system of writing and that the Egyptians adopted the idea of writing, not a
particular system of writing, from the Sumerians.
The Egyptian system of writing, called “Hieroglyphics” by the Greeks, started as a form of
picture-writing inscribed on stone (c3,100 BCE). Later the Egyptians began to write on sheets
made from the papyrus plant. The oldest known books were written on rolls of papyrus.
Picture-writing in Egypt was replaced by ideographic writing, in which pictures came to
represent ideas instead of objects and actions. Much later, in the early dynastic period of Egypt’s
history, pictures were reduced to a few strokes and some of these strokes were used to represent
sounds (alphabetic writing). Between 1,500 and 1,000 BCE, the Phoenicians, a Semitic-speaking
people of the Levant (the area of present-day Lebanon and Syria), used about twenty symbols of
the Egyptian hieroglyphic script to develop an all-consonant alphabet, which was adopted and
modified by other peoples of the area, including the Arameans, Jews, and Arabs.
Ancient Egyptian writing covered a variety of subjects: theology, mathematics, science,
medicine, history, poetry, and fiction. A good proportion of them recorded royal commands and
accomplishments. Perhaps the most famous of all the Egyptian rolls is The Book of the Dead, which
contains religious beliefs, hymns, and magical formulas; it also contains treatises on medicine.
Summing up the cultural achievement of ancient Egypt, H. A. Davies has written that Egypt
was “a prosperous and affluent country enjoying a remarkable degree of culture”. In addition to the
inventions and other achievements mentioned above, the Egyptians, in his own words,

were cunning smiths; potters who made vessels of great beauty; glass workers;
weavers of fine line stuff; makers of tapestry, goldsmiths whose work is hardly
surpassed by that of the best goldsmiths and porters of the present day; cabinet
makers who made chairs and couches for the king and rich people, much of it
very beautiful, overlaid with gold and silver, inlaid with ivory and ebony; and
upholstered with soft leathern cushions; and musicians who played upon the
harp, pipe or lute.12

Since the Ancient Egyptians were able to do all this “at a time when Europeans had not advanced
beyond the lake village stage”, when many other parts of the world were still primitive, their status
as cultural innovators, and their nation’s status as a cradle of civilization, deserve all the scholarly
attention it gets.
12
H. A. Davies, An Outline History of the World (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1968), 22-24.
12
13
 Chapter 3

MESOPOTAMIA AND PERSIA

MESOPOTAMIA

Mesopotamia is the Greek term for “land between the rivers”. The term refers to a historic area that
is now mainly in present-day Iraq, with some parts of it in eastern Syria and western Iran. The
rivers in question are the Tigris and Euphrates. Both rise in Turkey and flow south into Iraq, where
they meet and flow into the Persian Gulf as the Shatt al-Arab River. Mesopotamia is made up two
historic sections. One is Babylonia, which refers to the plain region of the lower (or southern)
valley; the hilly region of upper (or northern) Mesopotamia is called Assyria. Several ancient
peoples, kingdoms, and civilizations flourished in this region. It was indeed a cradle of civilization.
The earliest civilization of the region was that of the Sumerians. 13 It was followed by the Akkadian,
Amorite, Assyrian, and Chaldean civilizations.

The Sumerians
The Sumerians are described in ancient history texts as a “mysterious” people. This is because their
language is related to neither of the two language families of Mesopotamia, the Aryan and Semitic.
Linguists are yet to find any other language to which it is related. The Sumerian civilization was
contemporaneous with the Egyptian, but authorities believe that it had an earlier origin that that of
the Nile Valley. The following passage from H. A. Davies’ An Outline of World History gives
some insight into the antiquity and character of the civilization of Sumer:

The chief city of the Sumerians was Nippur …. Excavations conducted there …
have revealed evidence of a city community existing as early as 5,000 BC and
possibly 6,000 BC—an earlier date than any city we have any record of in Egypt.
At Nippur, the Sumerians built a great tower to their chief god, Enlil, god of the
air. Other towns did the same and the tower of Babylon may have inspired the
Biblical story of the tower of Babel. [Sumer] at this time was divided into city-
states, which often fought for mastery among themselves. Each of them probably
had a king, an aristocracy of royal officials and priests; a middle class of
merchants, and, lowest of all, slaves…. The priests were evidently very powerful.
Before the institution of kingship, cities were ruled by chief priests…. Very
famous was the city of Ur, whence the patriarch Abraham emigrated to the land of
Israel [Canaan]. Recent excavations on the site of ancient Ur have revealed
evidence of civilization during a period stretching from about 3,200 to 2,000 BC.
They include statues … of gods; vessels and ornaments of gold, silver, alabaster,
ivory, and lapis lazuli; silver harp; chariots…, golden helmets, beautifully
designed necklaces, bracelets, and other jewellery. 14

We will now discuss some of the cultural achievements of the Sumerians.

13
Old book refer to the country of the Sumerians as Sumeria. The term is no longer in use. The land or
country of the Sumerians is now called Sumer.
14
H. A. Davies, An Outline History of the World (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1968), 47-48.
14
Writing: The Sumerians were probably the first people to develop the art of writing. As in Egypt,
they started with picture writing. Later the symbols came to represent either syllables or words
(logograms). Thus, the Sumerian system of writing was a blend of both syllographs (symbols
representing syllables) and logographs (symbols representing words). When fully developed the
Sumerian system of writing had over 600 symbols. Thus, unlike phonetic writing, it was not easy to
learn. The Sumerian system of writing is called cuneiform. This refers to the shape of the symbols,
which are like those of a wedge (thick at one end and pointed at the other). The Sumerians used a
stylus (a pointed instrument used for engraving, especially one used in ancient times for writing on
clay or wax tablets) to make inscriptions on clay tablets. They also wrote on stone, wax, metals,
and other materials. The bulk of the writings of the Sumerians were business agreements. They
also wrote poems and stories. One of their famous stories is the Epic of Gilgamesh, which tells of
the futile quest of its hero for immortality. The cuneiform script was used in Mesopotamia until the
second century of the Common Era. It was displaced by other writing systems that were basically
alphabetic. The cuneiform script was deciphered from Assyrian writings in the nineteenth century.

Agriculture: The Sumerians were probably the first people to start farming. It seems that wheat
was the first crop that they cultivated. Rainfall was inadequate in Babylonia. Hence, as human
settlements in the area expanded beyond the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, they residents
found it necessary to develop an irrigation system—a system that would take water beyond the
banks of these rivers to farms and homes in the surrounding arid land. Besides lifting water and
channelling it to their farms, the Sumerians, unlike the Ancient Egyptians, constructed dams. The
construction of dams was necessitated by occasional insufficiency of water in the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers. While the Nile was filled with adequate water every year, the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers did not have sufficient water in years of drought. Thus the Sumerians constructed
dams to store water for use in years of low tide.
Besides developing an irrigation system, a system that was copied by other Mesopotamian
peoples, the Sumerians invented the wagon wheel and the plough. They also invented measuring
and surveying instruments.

Other innovations/achievements: The Sumerians took interest in astronomy, mathematics, and

medicine. 60 was the basic unit in their numerical system. They divided the hour into 60 minutes,
and the minute into 60 seconds. They also divided the circle into 360 degrees. The Sumerians were
probably the first people to organize drilled armies. Sumerian armies consisted of soldiers of
different kinds—infantry, spearmen, and charioteers. Sumerian cities fought over the possession of
sources of water, land resources, and the control of trade routes. Drilled armies of increasing size
later became common in Babylonia.15

* * *
About 2,330 BC, Babylonia was conquered by the Akkadians, a Semitic people from
Central Mesopotamia. The Akkadians ended the dominance of the Sumerians. Sargon I, the king of
the conquerors, founded a dynasty. The Akkadians adopted the advanced culture of the Sumerians,
and helped to spread it.

Though the Akkadians conquered the Sumerians [to quote H. A. Davies

again], the Sumerians civilization conquered that of the Akkadians, who
learnt the Sumerian writing and the Sumerian language, and adopted the

15
Drills are exercises meant to enable soldiers move in an orderly manner, to improve their endurance, and
“aid in discipline by instilling habits of precision and response to the leader’s orders”. It was first used in
combat by the Greeks, but today (as in the era of the Sumerians) it is used only in military parades. See
"Military Drill", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007.

15
 Sumerian calendar and systems of weights and measures. They also
learnt the Sumerian art of sculpture, but in this they soon surpassed their
teachers.16

In 2,218 BCE, the Gutians, another Babylonian group, ended Akkadian rule. The Sumerians
regained their independence in the twenty-second century BCE (2,100s). But they later lost control
of Babylonia. No ethnic group proved able to dominate the region until about four hundred years
later, when the Amorites achieved dominance in the area.

The Amorites

About 1,830 BC an Amorite dynasty was founded in the city of Babylon. Hammurabi (r1792-1750)
was able to unite Babylonia in the first few years of his rule. He also conquered Syria. Hammurabi
built Babylon into a magnificent capital. He constructed canals and improved river navigation. He
encouraged Amorite priests to study astronomy, mathematics, and literature.
Hammurabi is better known as a lawgiver, as the codifier of the laws of the Amorites. He
claimed that he received the laws from the sun god, Shamash. In his own words, he issued the laws
in order to “bring order to my people, and so that I might free them from evil and wicked men,
[and] that I should defend the weak from the oppression of the mighty”. The laws of Hammurabi
were arranged orderly, under the following headings: perjury; theft; land tenure; licensed drinking;
commerce; marriage and divorce; inheritance; adoption; medical treatment; construction; and hire
of livestock, labourers, and slaves. The laws contained no provisions on religion and taxation. The
laws protected the weak—orphans, widows, debtors, etc. Here is one such law:

If a debt is outstanding against a man, and Adad [god of rain] has

inundated his field or a flood has ravaged it, or through lack of water
grain has not been produced in the field, he shall not make any return of
grain to his creditor in that year; he shall cancel his credit tablet and he
shall pay no interest for that year. 17

There are many similarities between Hammurabi’s laws and the Mosaic laws in the Bible. One of
them is the provision for retaliation in kind, which, judging by our values today, we would find
most objectionable. Here are some of the provisions permitting this kind of punishment:

 If a freeman destroys the eye of another freeman, his eye

shall be destroyed.
 If anyone breaks a freeman’s bone, his bone shall be
broken.
 If a freeman knocks out the tooth of a freeman of his
own rank, his own tooth shall be knocked out.
 If a house falls down and causes the death of a
householder’s son, the son of the builder shall be put to death. 18

Generally, however, the code of Hammurabi is considered to be a humane civil law.

After Hammurabi’s death, his successors could not hold the Amorite empire together, and
subject groups regained their independence. About 1,600 BC, the Kassites, another “mysterious
people” (because their language was not related to any of the other languages of south-western

16
Davies, 50.
17
Cited in New Standard Encyclopedia, c.v. “Hammurabi” (Chicago: Standard Education Society, 1965),
HIJ-31.
18
Ibid.
16
Asia), invaded Babylon and eventually conquered all of Babylonia. The kings of the Kassites did
not encourage learning. They did not mobilize men and resources to develop infrastructure or build
magnificent structures. Under their rule, the march of civilization was retarded for over four
centuries.

The Assyrians

The march of civilization resumed in the thirteenth century when Assyria became the dominant
power in Mesopotamia. A landmark year in the history of the rise of Assyria is 1,225 BCE, when
their king Tukulti-Ninurta I captured Babylon and greatly undermined the imperial power of the
Kassites. The Elamites, a people whose homeland is in the west of present-day Iran, dealt the killer
blow to the Kassites about 1,155 BC. This helped to clear the way to Assyrian political dominance
in Mesopotamia.
The most famous Assyrian king was Tiglath-Pileser III (r745-727 BCE). This king
established a standing army which was composed of soldiers drawn largely from conquered areas.
He deported the peoples he conquered to other places within his empire. His reason for doing so
was to undermine their national consciousness and solidarity. Under him and his successors Assyria
made many conquests, making it the leading empire in the world. Among their conquests was
Samaria, the kingdom of the ten northern tribes of Israel (late eight century BCE). Other eight
century conquests included many states in Syria and southern Anatolia (present-day Turkey). In the
same century, the Assyrians defeated the Chaldeans and the Aramaeans in Babylonia. In 690 BCE,
they destroyed Babylon. In the period 670-645 BCE, they reduced Egypt to a tribute-paying
province. The Assyrians treated the people they conquered ruthlessly, exacting tribute, deporting
conquered peoples (as stated above), and enslaving or killing those that were deemed disloyal.
They did not try at all to conciliate conquered peoples. Since Assyrian rule was based almost
exclusively on force, it survived only as long as the Assyrian army could maintain order. In the
seventh century, the Assyrians overstretched themselves as they tried to make new conquests. In
612 BCE, a coalition of Medes and Chaldeans defeated the Assyrians and dissolved their empire.
The Assyrian kings embarked upon projects that contributed to cultural progress. They built
new roads, and diverted old ones, to their capital, Nineveh. Soldiers manning several military posts
protected traffic in every direction. The kings also supported artists. Assyrian art was influenced by
the patterns of those they conquered or defeated, especially the Babylonians and Egyptians. Their
royal palaces surpassed those of previous empires in size and splendour. The greatest cultural
achievement of the Assyrians was the establishment of a huge library in Nineveh. Established by
King Ashurbanipal (r669-627 BCE) and called the Library of Ashurbanipal, this was a building in
the king’s palace with a collection of about 25,000 tablets of clay, wood, and wax. Written in the
cuneiform script, the tablets contain accounts on the literary, scientific, and religious ideas of the
time.

The Chaldeans

After the fall of Assyria, the Neo-Babylonians, better known as the Chaldeans, became dominant in
Mesopotamia. Their most famous king was Nebuchadnezzar II (r605-562 BC). In 605-598 BC, he
led successful military campaigns against Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. In March 597 BC, he
captured Jerusalem and took the king of Judah and many Jews as captives to Babylonia. In
response to a revolt by Judah in 588 BC, he waged another war on the Jewish kingdom and, in 586
BC, destroyed Jerusalem and exiled the bulk of the remaining Jews to Babylonia.
Portrayed in the Bible as an evil king, Nebuchadnezzar is best known in history books for
his grandiose and magnificent building projects. He made Babylon one of the most beautiful cities
in the world. Besides, his government dug canals, and built a huge dam on the Euphrates. To guard

17
against a feared invasion by the Medes, he built a wall, called the Median Wall, on the northern
border of Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar is also credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens
of Babylon (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World).19
Nebuchadnezzar II and his successor encouraged learning. Under them, Chaldean
astrologers made important contributions to the science of astronomy. Among other things, they
divided the stars into twelve groups, which today are called the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac. The
astrologers were able to identify five other planets—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. As
Davies further reports, “the Chaldean astronomers were subsequently able to carry their researches
so far as to foretell an eclipse, and their work was the foundation upon which Greek astronomers
built”. 20
In 539 BC, Cyrus, king of Persia, conquered Babylon and absorbed Babylonia into his
Persian Empire.

PERSIA

Until 1935, Persia was the name by which the country now called Iran was known. An ancient
civilization was developed in this area by the ancestors of the ethnic Persians of present-day Iran.21
The Persians are Aryans. Their language, Persian (also called Farsi), belongs to the eastern branch
of the Indo-European language family. They migrated to their present homeland from the north
(from the eastern side of the Caspian Sea) and spread westwards towards Mesopotamia. The
Persians and the Medes were related and were collectively known as the Iranians.
In 612 BC, as we have seen, the Medes allied with the Chaldeans and overthrew the Assyrian
Empire. Medes became the ruling Iranian state. In 550 BCE, Cyrus, king of the Persians, overthrew
the Medes and made himself “King of Kings” of all Iranians. Cyrus (called “Cyrus the Great”) later
conquered the kingdom of Lydia (546 BC) and gained control of the entire Asia Minor, including
the Greek city-states of Ionia. In 539 BCE, as we have seen, he conquered Babylonia and dissolved
the Chaldean empire. Soon his empire extended to the eastern border of Egypt, and a new capital
was established at Susa. In 525 BCE, Cambyses (r529-521 BC), the son and successor of Cyrus the
Great, conquered Egypt.
Darius I (r521-486 BCE) extended the Persian Empire westwards to the western bank of the
Indus River. He also built a royal city in Persopolis. While trying to establish firmer control over
his immense empire, Darius aroused the Ionian cities to revolt, and soon found his empire at war
with Greece. The Greeks defeated Persia at Marathon (490 BCE). Xerxes (r486-465 BCE), Darius’
son and successor, renewed the campaign against Greece, and crushed a Greek force at
Thermopylae (480 BCE). However, in the following year, the Greek navy routed the Persian fleet
at Salamis. The Greeks also defeated the Persians in two land battles in 488 BCE. After these
victories, Persia made no further attempt to expand its empire. Over time, it declined. In the fourth
century BCE, the Phoenician cities in the empire (in the area that is Lebanon today) began to break
away. After a series of battles from 334 to 331 BC, Alexander the Great dissolved the Persian
Empire and absorbed it into the Macedonian Empire. After Alexander’s death in 323 BC, his
generals fought over the Persian throne. Seleucus I triumphed, and founded the Seleucid dynasty.
The Seleucids controlled Persia and some of the areas that had been under the Persian Empire—
Babylonia, Syria, Asia Minor, and the area that is now Afghanistan. The Seleucids were
overthrown in the second century BC by the Parthians, a people of Scythian descent, who founded
the Parthian Empire. In 224 CE, a Persian vassal king, Ardashir I, overthrew the Parthians, and
founded a new Persian dynasty. The Sassanids, as the members of this dynasty were called, ruled
19
See Appendix.
20
Davies, 59.
21
About 40% of Iranians today belong to other ethnic groups. The largest minority group are the Azeris, a
Turkic people.
18
Persia and its subject territories till 651 CE, when, after a series of wars over a fifteen-year period,
the Arabs brought Persia into the abode of Islam.
The ancient Persians were culture carriers. They adopted the innovations of earlier
civilizations and made some contributions of their own to the cultural heritage of mankind. Darius I
established a system of provincial administration that is considered enlightened by scholars. He
divided the empire into provinces, or satrapies, each under a governor (satrap). The provinces
enjoyed a great deal of independence in many matters so long as they paid their tributes regularly
and supplied the king’s army with their own quotas of recruits. Thus, the Persian army was a
multinational one. Generally, the subject territories in the Persian Empire were ruled in a just and
reasonable manner. Native laws, customs, and religions were permitted, and native leaders often
held high official positions in the provinces and the capital. (The Ottoman Turks were to adopt a
similar system of provincial administration in the era of the Ottoman Empire.)
Another important achievement of the Persians was the development of the first efficient
postal service in the ancient world. There were several mail routes. The main one was the royal
road, which stretched from the capital Susa, near the Persian Gulf, to Sardia, which is in the area
that is now Turkey. The use of mails along this road belonged exclusively to the government.
Saddle horses always stood ready to carry tidings from the most remote parts of the empire to the
capital. Herodotus said of this system: “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays
these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”. 22 We might add that these
words are on a plaque at the central post office in New York City.
Persia gave the world the religion called Zoroastrianism. This is a religion that was based
on the teachings attributed to a Persian religious poet, Zoroaster. Scholars are of the view that he
lived sometime in the second millennium BCE. In place of the polytheistic Persian traditional
religion, Zoroaster proclaimed the existence of one god, Ahura-Mazda, also called Ormudz (the
lord of light). Opposed to Ahura-Mazda was Angra Mainyu, also called Ahriman (the prince of
darkness). Ahura-Mazda is perfect, rational, and omniscient. While Ahura-Mazda represents order,
Angra Mainyu represents confusion. Zoroastrians believe that Angra Mainyu is constantly at war
with Ahura-Mazda, and is always tempting human beings to sin. In the long struggle between good
and evil, good will ultimately triumph. Zoroastrians further believe that Ahura-Mazda, who created
human beings and the world, gave each person the freedom to choose between good and evil. By
the choice each person makes, he aids either Ahura-Mazda or Angra Mainyu, and stores up for
himself a future reward (paradise) or punishment (hell). To be on the right side of Ahura-Mazda,
human beings are required to have good thoughts, use good words, and do good deeds.
Zoroastrianism is a scriptural religion. Its scripture, the Avesta (the book of knowledge and
wisdom), includes poems attributed to Zoroaster. Zoroastrianism had some influence on Judaism
and Christianity. The first recorded concepts of Satan, the coming of a messiah, resurrection, and
the Last Judgement are found in Zoroastrian texts.
Zoroastrianism became the official religion of Persia from the sixth century BCE. When
Alexander the Great conquered Persia, he introduced the polytheistic religion of the Greeks. Under
the Seleucids, there was a blend of the Greek religion with Zoroastrianism. “Pure” or “original”
Zoroastrianism was revived under the Parthians. Under the Sassanids, it became the official
religion of Persia once again. Following the Arab conquest in 651 CE, Persians were gradually
converted to Islam, which became the dominant religion in the country. The Persians that remained
Zoroastrians have suffered persecution occasionally. The secular regimes of Shah Riza Khan and
his son Mohammed Riza Pahlavi (1925-44 and 1953-79) were favourably disposed towards the
Zoroastrians. But under the Islamic Republic (since 1979), the government became less tolerant.
Thus, many Zoroastrians converted to Islam or emigrated to the West. Only about 45,000

22
Cited in New Standard Encyclopedia, c.v. “Post Office” (Chicago: Standard Education Society, 1965), P-
309.
19
Zoroastrians live in Iran today.23
Some Zoroastrians in Persia reacted to the intolerance of the Muslim rulers of their country
by migrating to China and India. In China, the community was assimilated by the country’s
predominantly Buddhist population. In India, the Zoroastrians became known as Parsees. They do
not seek converts to their faith and do not accept children from mixed marriages into their
community. But while practising their ancient religion, they adopted Western manners and
education, and became a prosperous community within India. Today, it is estimated that there are
about 76,000 Zoroastrians in India. Besides Iran and India, there are Zoroastrian communities in
North America, Western Europe, and Pakistan.24

23
Jamsheed K.Choksy, "Zoroastrianism", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft
Corporation, 2007.
24
Ibid.
20
 Chapter 4

ANCIENT AND MEDIAEVAL CHINA

China is a country of East Asia. With an estimated population of 1.3 billion people, it is the most
populous country in the world, and one of the largest in territory. The Chinese called their country
Zhongguo, which means the “Middle Kingdom”. The concept of “Middle Kingdom” was based on
two widely held Chinese beliefs —that there is heaven; and that their country was the most
civilized of the earthly kingdoms. Thus, heaven was the upper kingdom, their country the middle
kingdom, and the rest of the world (which in their view was filled with “barbarians”) the lower
kingdom. In the words of Patricia Ebrey, “[t]he name China was given to it by foreigners and is
probably based on a corruption of Qin (pronounced “chin”), a Chinese dynasty that ruled during the
3rd century BC”.25 From about the seventh to the fourteenth century CE, China was the most
advanced civilization in the world. Today, China is divided into two: the Peoples Republic of China
(mainland China and the semi-autonomous islands of Macau and Hong Kong), and Taiwan.

Prehistory

The ancestors of present-day Chinese appeared in the area that is now China about 20,000 years
ago. By 2,000 BCE they had developed a distinct culture in the river valleys of eastern China. By
1,000 BCE, their culture had become a civilization. This civilization was indigenous: it developed
independently of the older advanced civilizations of the Fertile Crescent. Prehistoric Chinese
cultivated rice, millet, soy beans, and yams. They produced ornaments and tools of gold, silver, and
bronze. They spurn and wove cloths. They lived in cities, and their society was politically and
socially stratified.

Brief History to 220 CE

Recorded Chinese history begins from the era of the Shang Dynasty (1570?-1045? CE). It was an
agricultural civilization that used stone and bronze tools. Its system of writing, which is not vastly
different from the one in use today, used symbols that represented either syllables or words. The
Chinese of this era wrote on bone. They kept records of time, and domesticated pigs, goats, and
dogs. They dug irrigation canals, wove silk, hunted animals, and fished.
The Shang dynasty was overthrown by the Zhou (formerly spelled Chou), a people of north-
western China. The Zhou established another dynasty that lasted about 790 years (1045?-256
BCE). This period is sometimes called the Chinese Bronze Age. This is because bronze was the
main raw material for making tools. Iron also came into use during this period. The Zhou period
was the classical age of Chinese feudalism. As Europe was to be in the mediaeval period, China
under the Zhou rulers was dotted by walled cities surrounded by peasant farms. The peasants were
under the protection of feudal lords. The latter half of the Zhou period was the classical age of
Chinese literature. The great philosophers and religious leaders of Ancient China—Confucius, Lao-
Tse, Mo-ti, and Mencius—lived in this period. An elaborate bureaucratic system was developed by
the Zhou monarchs. Among other things, the bureaucrats kept records of taxation and irrigation
costs. Bureaucrats in the Zhou and subsequent eras in ancient Chinese history were powerful. This
was mainly because they were few. Their scarcity was due largely to the difficulty of learning how
Patricia Ebrey, “Introduction” to Craig Clunas, et al, "China", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD].
25

Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007.

21
to read and write. As of then, about 50,000 symbols were used to write Chinese. Only very patient
and intellectually gifted persons could learn how to read and write.
The feudal kingdom of the Zhou monarchs was overthrown by the ruler of one of its
western states, Qin (221 BCE). Qin assumed the title of emperor and created the imperial form of
government that lasted until the twentieth century of the Common Era (when the Manchu dynasty
was overthrown). In the era of the Qin (formerly spelled Chin) dynasty, which ended in 206 BCE,
the construction of the Great Wall began, and China started trading with Rome through Central
Asia.
In 206 BC, Liu Bang, a minor official of the Qin government, revolted against his emperor,
and succeeded in overthrowing him. He founded the Han dynasty, which ruled China till 220 CE.
During this period, Buddhism, a religion founded in India, spread to China and later became its
dominant religion.

Chinese Inventions/Achievements

Great Wall: As we have seen, the construction of the Great Wall, also called the Long Wall, began
and was largely built in the era of the Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE). It was completed many
centuries later, during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The wall was built for strategic purposes,
primarily to prevent the Tartars (operating from their base in Mongolia) from invading China. It is
approximately 2,896 kilometres (1,799 miles) long. The wall varied in height from 4.5 metres (14.7
feet) to 9 metres (29.5 feet). It rose from a granite base that varied in width from 4.5 metres (14.7
feet) to 7.6 metres (25 feet). The top narrowed to about 3.6 metres (11.8 feet) in width. Guard
towers that were about 12 metres (39 feet) high stood 182 metres (597 feet) apart. The wall was
built largely of earth and stone, with a protective-cum-decorative outer layer of brick. Coolies
(poorly paid manual labourers) provided the labour used in constructing the wall. Much of the
Great Wall has crumbled. The remaining part is a major tourist attraction in China.

Paper: The credit for the invention of paper is given to a Chinese palace official named Ts’ai Lun,
in 105 CE. The first paper probably contained fibres of mulberry bark, bamboo, and silk. In the
eight century CE, the Arabs learnt the secret of paper making from the Chinese. The Europeans
later learnt from the Arabs.

Gunpowder: This is the explosive mixture of charcoal, sulphur, and saltpetre. It is used in
fireworks, coal mining, stone quarrying, oil prospecting, and, up to the twentieth century, in
firearms. Gunpowder was invented by the Chinese. The year, decade or even century it was
invented is not known. It was unknown in Europe before 1,200. The Arabs were the first to learn
how to make it from the Chinese. The Europeans learnt from the Arabs.

Confucianism: This is a religious-ethical system established by Confucius (552-479 BCE) a

Chinese philosopher and educator. Confucius made no claim to divination or supernatural
knowledge. He presented his pupils with a moral code which dominated Chinese thought until the
twentieth century. Among other things, Confucius advocated the virtues of loyalty and reciprocity.
He defined the latter as “not inflicting on others that which you do not want yourself” (which is
called the Golden Rule today). He also advocated courage, which he defined as lack of fear in
doing what is right. His teachings were combined with ancestor worship, the worship of heaven,
and belief in the two principles of nature called yin (evil) and yang (good). Confucianism ranks
with Taoism and Buddhism among the great ethical systems of China.

Silk: The Chinese were the first people to produce silk (fibre secreted by the silkworm, and used in
making threads and cloths). They got silk from the mulberry silkworm (a caterpillar), and invented
the silk reel to turn the fibre into rolls of cloth. Until 300 CE, silk making was a national secret of
22
the Chinese. The Japanese learnt the secret about this time, and broke the Chinese monopoly in the
enterprise.

Others: In the Middle Ages the Chinese made the following important inventions: the porcelain,
also called “china” (sixth or seventh century); and the mariner’s compass (eleventh or twelfth
century). They were the first people to use thumb printing for identification.

23
 Chapter 5

ANCIENT GREECE
Greece today is an independent country consisting of a mainland, which is in the southern
part of the Balkan Peninsula, and many nearby islands. It was here that, centuries before the
Christian era, there arose an enlightened civilization—the civilization of Ancient Greece.
Mainland Greece is a mountainous area cut by many deep, narrow valleys. There are a few
basins and plains; a narrow lowland exists along a part of its coast. The islands of Greece are
often mountainous and rise abruptly from the sea. The islands make up about a fifth of the
total area of present-day Greece.
The earliest centres of Greek civilization were not regarded as part of Ancient Greece
until recent research indicated that the people who lived there were indeed Greeks. These
centres were the island of Crete, the base of the Minoan period of Greek history (2,200?-
1,400 BCE), and the northern part of mainland Greece, the base of several Mycenaean
kingdoms. Among other things, the Greeks of the island, called Minoans, created a “palace
society”, used metals, had a writing system, practised agriculture, and engaged in
international trade with their eastern neighbours. They fell in 1,400 BCE to another Greek-
speaking people, the Mycenaeans. The Mycenaeans lived in independent communities that
were clustered around palaces and kings. They established these communities about 1,550
BCE. They collapsed about 1,000 BCE due to a series of civil wars and invasion by other
Greek-speaking peoples—those that are called Greeks in history books. The invaders came
from the northern region of the Balkan Peninsula. They spoke the same language and
worshipped the same gods. But they had different identities—Hellenes, Thessalians,
Boeotians, Achaeans, Phocians, and Dorians. They mixed with the peoples that had been
living there (southern part of the peninsula) in different proportions. But, probably because
they outnumbered the earlier settlers, the language of the invaders became dominant in the
area. From the peninsula, the conquerors crossed the Aegean Sea and founded settlements on
the western coast of Asia Minor and the islands of that sea. Over time, between 1,000 and
600 BCE, the various Greek groups developed a common identity: they called their land
Hellas and themselves Hellenes. (Greece and Greek are English names for the land and
people of Hellas respectively.) However, cultural unity did not lead to political unity. The
Greeks could not be brought under a single government until their land was conquered by
Rome in the second century BCE. The geography of Greece was probably the main
impediment to political unity. In the words of George Guest, Greece’s “plains and valleys are
cut off from neighbouring ones by rugged heights. And the lack of roads made
communication between valley and valley difficult”.26
Rather than a united nation-state, the Greek communities in their various valleys and
islands formed city-states. About 150 city-states, each independent under its own ruler, were
formed by the Greeks. The city-states were not of equal size and military strength. Thus, from
time to time, the strong were tempted to conquer the weak, many of which were reduced to
vassal or client states of the strong. Two city-states eventually became dominant: Sparta and
Athens.

26
George Guest, The March of Civilisation (London: Bell & Sons, 1957), 47.

24
 In the beginning, the city-state was ruled by a king, who was assisted by a council. By
the beginning of the eight century BC, monarchy had given way in most city-states to group
rule by the aristocracy. Sometimes, one man would seize power and rule alone. He was called
a tyrant, meaning dictator. Although some of the tyrants were excellent rulers and were loved
by their people, the Greeks were in principle opposed to tyranny. Their continued search for a
more enlightened form of government led them to adopt what they called democracy. More is
said about this below.
Sparta was probably the only Greek state that did not adopt democracy. However, the
Spartans did not like tyranny. Hence they adopted a system of joint rule by two kings and
established a council of nobles that could check the excesses of the kings. Before the
beginning of the sixth century BC, Sparta was a city of culture. But from this century, luxury
and learning were banished in the city. Sparta became a military state and its citizens spent
much of their time training as warriors. Sparta contributed little to Greek artistic and
intellectual development. But it became the largest and strongest Greek city-state.
Athens was Sparta’s main rival. About 594 BCE, the soldier-poet Solon was given the
powers of a tyrant. He reformed the laws, increased the rights of the city’s citizens and helped
to develop an economy based on industry and commerce. Social and political reforms
continued under the tyrant Pisastratus. Trade made Athens prosperous. It became the leading
Greek city in political, intellectual, and artistic development.

Era of Colonization

The hilly and stony soil of Greece and Asia Minor could not support a growing population for
long. In the eight century BCE, the adventurous Greeks began establishing colonies in new,
unsettled areas. Each colony was sponsored by a city-state and was permitted to govern itself.
Greek colonies were founded in Macedonia and Thrace, along the northern shores of the
Aegean Sea, around the Sea of Marmara, and along the southern shore of the Black Sea.
(These areas are mainly in the Balkan Peninsula and the area of present-day Turkey.) The
Greeks also founded colonies on the North African coast, in Sicily and Italy, and as far north
as France and Spain. Istanbul, Benghazi, Naples, and Marseilles began as Greek colonies.
Greek cities were strengthened economically through trade with the colonies.

War and Loss of Independence

Although the Greek city-states fought among themselves, they occasionally found it
necessary to unite to fight a common non-Greek enemy. In the period 490-479 BCE, for
instance, they fought a series of wars against Persia. In the middle of the sixth century BCE,
Cyrus the Great of Persia seized Lydia and Ionia (Greek settlements in Asia Minor). Darius I
advanced into Thrace in the next century. This led to the Graeco-Persian wars.
In their first invasion of Greece, the Persians were defeated by the Athenians under
Miltiades at Marathon (490 BCE). Anticipating further conflict, the Athenian leader
Themistocles (527?-460? BCE) started building a big navy. A second Persian invasion in
480 BCE was led by Darius’ son, Xerxes. At the mountain pass of Thermopylae, a vastly
outnumbered force from Sparta and Thespiae, led by King Leonidas I of Sparta, made a
heroic but futile stand against the Persians, who captured and burnt Athens. The Greek fleet
took refuge on the island of Salamis, where it won a decisive victory over the Persian fleet
(479 BCE). The remaining Persians in Greece were later defeated by a Greek force under the

25
Spartan commander Pausanians and the Athenian commanders Xanthippus and Aristedes.27
About 460 BC, Pericles, a gifted leader of men and orator, became head of the
Athenian democratic party and virtual ruler of Athens for thirty years. Athens’s foreign
policy under Pericles was imperialistic and autocratic. Athens dominated the Delian League,
an alliance of Aegean cities formed for mutual protection, and forced the members of the
league to pay tribute. Athens began expanding to the east by sea, where it came into conflict
again with Persia; and to the west on land, where it clashed with the Peloponnesian League
led by Sparta. Members of the Delian League revolted. There were innumerable military
conflicts, with Athens being the final victor. In 448 BCE, a peace treaty was signed with
Persia and in 445 BCE a thirty-year truce was made with Sparta. In 443 BCE, Pericles
reorganized the Delian League as an Athenian empire.
However, fear of an expanding Athens was shared by all major Greek cities. Fighting
started in 433 BCE between Athens and Corinth. In 431BCE, Thebes, an ally of Sparta, tried
to seize Plataea, an ally of Athens. As Athens tried to defend Plataea and punish its invaders,
a large scale war broke out between the Delian and Peloponnesian leagues. Called the
Peloponnesian War, this war lasted till 404 BC.
During the first year, Athens fought vigorously under Pericles, but in the second year
a plague in the city took many lives, including that of Pericles. Fighting continued for ten
years. In 421 Nicias, an Athenian leader, negotiated a truce intended to create a fifty-year
alliance between Athens and Sparta. But the peace was not put into effect, as fighting was
resumed under Alicibiades, a rival of Nicias. Athens launched a tremendous attack against
Sicily, but it ended in disaster. Revolution broke out in Athens and one government after
another came to power. Persia took the opportunity to aid Sparta. Although the Athenians
won a few last victories, their navy was finally defeated and the city blocked. Starved into
surrender, Athens fell in 404 BC. The Athenian Empire was dissolved, and victorious Sparta
named a group of aristocrats, called the Thirty Tyrants, to rule the vanquished city. However,
it did not take long for the democrats in Athens to overthrow the Tyrants and restore Athens’s
independence. Athens continued to lead Greece in culture and learning, but it could not build
another empire. Sparta itself began to fight with many cities over which it oppressed. In 371
BC, Thebes defeated Sparta at Leuctra, permanently ending Spartan dominance.
In 338 BCE, the Macedonians, a culturally backward but warlike people from the
north of Greece, who were led by a king (Philip II) that had adopted Greek culture, defeated
an alliance of Greek forces, and brought the entire Greek peninsula under their control.
Philip’s son Alexander (later called “the Great”) combined the Greek and Macedonian armies
into a massive fighting force and in 334 BCE crossed into Asia Minor. In the next ten years,
he conquered the entire Persian Empire, which included eastern Mediterranean countries as
far as Egypt, and extended inland as far as India. After Alexander died in 323 BCE, his
empire was divided, but he had planted a Hellenistic culture throughout the eastern
Mediterranean region.

The Legacy of Ancient Greece

See "Battle of Thermopylae", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft
27

Corporation, 2007.

26
Even though Greek civilization developed later than those of the Fertile Crescent, the Greeks
are the most celebrated people of antiquity (ancient times especially the era of the Greek and
Roman civilizations). This is because their accomplishments, made mainly in the fifth and
fourth centuries BCE, formed the basis of Western civilization. In summary, the Greeks
produced art, architecture, literature, drama, and philosophic concepts that were of very high
quality and which set standards for Western society, and, through European domination of
the world in the Modern Era, for other parts of the world. The Greeks developed the political
institution of democracy, established freedom of speech and religion, and founded a system
of law defining the rights of citizens. They made major discoveries in astronomy, physics,
mathematics and medicine; the first experimental scientists were Greeks.
It is important to stress here that, unlike the civilization of Ancient China, Greek
civilization did not develop independently. Through the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations,
it derived much of the legacy of the older civilizations of the Fertile Crescent. The cultural
developments adopted from other countries include the following: writing, from Phoenicia;
coinage, from Lydia; a system of weights and measures, from Babylonia; and improved
methods of metal working and weaving, and knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, from
Egypt. Thus, it was not because they were pioneers of civilization, but because they added
greatly to what other civilizations had contributed, that the Greeks are regarded as “the
greatest culture-carriers of the Western world” (George Guest). We will now mention
some of the highlights of Greek civilization.

Writing: As we have seen above (under Ancient Egypt), the Phoenicians, using some of the
symbols of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, invented an all-consonant alphabet between 1,500
and 1,000 BCE. About 1,000 BCE, long before their golden age, the Greeks adopted the
Semitic alphabet of the Phoenicians. They used some of the Phoenician letters to express
vowel sounds and added some of their own to form an alphabet of twenty-four characters, the
first true alphabet of consonants and vowels. Colonizers carried the Greek alphabet to Italy,
where the Roman alphabet was developed from it. The Roman alphabet was later adopted by
most other countries of Europe: only the Greeks, Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians,
Macedonians, Serbians, and Bulgarians use the Greek (or Cyrillic) script today.

Architecture: The Greek adopted the post-and-lintel principle, probably the oldest principle
of architecture. They did not use the arch in their buildings. The most distinctive feature of
Classical Greek architecture is the column (a supporting pillar).28
The most important Greek buildings were not tombs, as in Egypt, but the temples that
housed statues of gods. At first these temples were built of wood, but by 600 BCE they were
constructed of stone. The temple was rectangular and stood on a stone platform. It consisted
of three parts: the base, on which the structure rested; the columns, which supported slabs of
stone (the entablature); and a sloping roof with a gable (“the triangular top section of a side
wall on a building with a pitched roof that fills the space beneath where the roof slopes
meet”)29. The entablature was a more complex form of the lintel.
Notable products of Greek architecture include the Parthenon, a marble temple
dedicated to the goddess Athena. Built from 447 BCE to 432 BCE, this was a rectangular
structure on the Acropolis hill. Its entablature stood on 50 columns, 17 on each side of the

28
A lintel is a horizontal beam or slab bridging an open space between upright supports or posts. The
post-and-lintel system was the earliest principle of building construction. An arch is a curved structure
that forms the upper edge of an open space such as a window or a doorway.
29
See Microsoft® Encarta® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation.

27
length, 8 on each side of the width. It is partly in ruins today. Other architectural monuments
include the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (one of the Seven Wonders of the World), the Temple
of Poseidon at Paestum, the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, and the Temple of Artemis at
Ephesus (also one of the Seven Wonders of the World).

Literature: In broad terms, literature means “all written expression of man’s thoughts”.

In a more narrow and specific sense, [to further quote from an

encyclopaedia] the term is applied to writing that records in an
imaginative way thoughts that are of lasting beauty, value, and
interest. In this sense literature is generally thought of in the form
of poetry, drama, and fiction. However, any lasting, well-written
non-fiction work in prose is also classified as literature. 30

A much broader definition of literature is the corpus of published works on any subject. It is
in this sense that the term “literature review” is used in the academic world. Our use of the
term here is limited: it covers only drama, fiction, poetry, and other written works of artistic
value.
Narrative poetry (poems that tell stories), lyric poetry (poems that are melodious), and
pastoral poetry (poems that idealise rural life) are of Greek origin. The outstanding works in
this genre are The Iliad and The Odyssey, which were attributed to Homer, who lived about
1,000 BC. These, as well as the works of Hesoid, became quite popular in the Western world
and are still basic texts in literary studies.
Drama developed in Greece during the fifth century BCE. Tragedy was concerned
with the lives of heroes and kings and was based on historic or legendary events. Comedy, on
the other hand, dealt with everyday life. The greatest dramatists of Ancient Greece were
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (all of whom wrote tragedies) and Aristophanes (who
wrote comedies). The rules for drama established by ancient Greek playwrights, including
those for the design and construction of the theatre, are, with little changes, still considered to
be fundamental. The Greeks were also pioneers in literary criticism. The greatest work in this
respect is Aristotle’s seminal book, Poetics, which for centuries was a guidebook for
dramatists and poets.
The development of History as a branch of learning and of literature owes much to the
Greeks. Annals (yearly record of events) were the earliest type of written historical records.
They were followed by chronicles (continuous narratives of happenings arranged in order of
occurrence). The Hebrews further developed historical writing, in the sense that they
combined narrative with analysis and interpretation. Two Greek writers, Herodotus of
Halicarnassus (485?-425BCE) and Thucydides (c460-c400 BCE), further developed the art
and science of historical writing. Unlike the Hebrews (the authors of the “books” of Old
Testament precisely), who wrote about the activities and powers of God as well as of men,
these two Greeks wrote only of the activities of men. Unlike the authors of the Old
Testament, too, these Greeks cited the sources of their accounts. Herodotus (484?-425 BCE),
called the “father of history”, broke literary tradition by writing in prose. His greatest work,
entitled History (the Greek word for “enquiry”), is an account of the Graeco-Persian Wars.
He was of the view that the world is ruled by Fate and Chance, but he also tried to draw
moral lessons from his study. Herodotus has been criticised for using as sources many

30
See New Standard Encyclopedia, c.v. “Literature” (Chicago: Standard Education Society, 1965), L-
261.

28
materials that he should have known were inaccurate. In his account of the Battle of
Thermopylae, for instance, he wrote that the Persian army numbered over two million, an
obviously impossible figure. Thucydides (c460-c400 BC), called the “father of critical
history”, wrote an account of the Peloponnesian War. Aptly entitled History of the
Peloponnesian War, the work was a careful eyewitness report; the author included only what
he knew to be true. Thucydides tried to draw universal laws of history, or to identify patterns
of historical change, from his account.

Philosophy: Defined as “love of wisdom” by the Greeks, philosophy has also been described
as the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. More critically, philosophy is “the rational and
critical inquiry into basic principles”. It seeks to understand the world and the human being’s
place in it. It also seeks to use the knowledge gained to make the world a better place.
Philosophy asks basic questions about the knowledge, beauty, morality, reality (about the
validity of religious beliefs), and politics.31 Western philosophy began in Greece. Indeed,
ancient philosophy was almost entirely Greek philosophy. The golden age of Greek
philosophy was the fourth century BCE, the era of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, three
towering figures in philosophy. These pioneers contributed a wealth of general ideas for later
philosophers to explore and exploit. Platonism and Aristotelianism became established
systems in Western philosophy. During the Hellenistic period,32 Greek philosophy spread
throughout the Western world. Various systems (or schools) developed within Hellenistic
philosophy, the most important being Cynicism, Scepticism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism.

Astronomy: The Greeks were not pioneers in astronomy but several Greeks made important
discoveries or advanced important theories. In the third century BCE, for instance,
Aristarchus of Samos (310?-250 BCE?) advanced several theories, the most important of
which was that the earth revolves around the sun. This theory was ignored for about
seventeen centuries until it was restated by Polish astronomer Copernicus (1453-1543). In
250 BCE, Eratosthenes, a librarian at Alexandria, figured the size of the earth by an ingenious
use of shadows.

Medicine: Medicine, precisely the attempt to use herbs and other substances to cure illnesses,
preceded civilization. Primitive man practised medicine. However, many ancient peoples
believed that sickness was caused by angry gods who expected a sacrifice, or by an evil spirit
that had to be scared out of the body by supernatural means.
Written records of medical practice date back to Egypt (fourth millennium BCE). The
Book of the Dead was one of them. Ancient India, China, and Babylonia also left records of
drugs used in treating the sick, and of simple operations. Mention is made in the Pentateuch
of the practice of medicine and sanitation by the Hebrews. Among these early peoples,
divination usually preceded treatment, and treatment often involved religious rites. Thus the
priest/diviner was often the same person as the doctor.

31
See Andrew N. Carpenter, "Western Philosophy", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond,
WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007, and New Standard Encyclopedia, c.v. “Philosophy” (Chicago:
Standard Education Society, 1965), P-287.
32
The Hellenistic Age is the period between the conquest of Greece and the Persian Empire by
Alexander the Great (fourth century BC) and the establishment of Roman dominance in Europe,
North Africa and south-west Asia (first century BC). During this period, Greek culture and learning
were pre-eminent in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. It is called Hellenistic to distinguish it
from the Hellenic culture of Classical Greece, the period before the conquest of the Greek city-states
by Macedon.

29
 The major contribution of ancient Greeks to medicine is the belief, attributed to
Hippocrates (460 BCE?-377BCE?), that diseases have physical not supernatural causes.
Hippocrates influenced much of the thinking contained in the Hippocratic Collection, an
assemblage of medical manuscripts, some of which were written as late as the third century
BCE. Hippocrates and his followers (the other anonymous persons that contributed to the
Hippocratic Collection) held that diseases had environmental causes—that the quality of an
area’s weather and drinking water affect the health of the people living there. The
Hippocratic Oath, sworn to by persons about to enter medical practice, is based on a code of
ethical conduct, or oath, in the Hippocratic collection. Hippocrates is called the “father of
medicine”. The greatest achievement of the followers of Hippocrates was their emphasis on
observation rather than theory and their belief that all illnesses derive from natural causes.
However, the Hippocratic physicians believed in the theory that health was maintained by a
proper balance of “four humours”—blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.33
Greek medicine was introduced into Egypt under the Ptolemies (323-30 BC), and
Alexandria became a centre of scientific research. Medicine in the city declined after Egypt
fell to the Romans. Galen (130-201CE), a Greek physician who practised in Rome, made
valuable observations on human physiology. However, he accepted the erroneous concept of
the four humours. Galen influenced medical thought for more than a thousand years.

Government: The major contribution of the Greeks to government was the democratic
system of government. The word “democracy” comes from two Greek words, and means
“rule by the people”.34
There are two broad forms of democracy: direct or pure democracy; and
indirect or representative democracy. Most of the Greek city-states practised direct
democracy, which was centred on a popular assembly. All free adult males (citizens) had the
right to participate in the work of the assembly. 35 Women and slaves were denied this right.
The members of the assembly could speak freely, vote to make laws, and take other decisions
affecting their city-state. The assemblies made and unmade leaders, ostracizing or executing
those they found wanting. The historian Thucydides penned the following words about the
system of government in Athens:

Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the

hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a
question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the
law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in
positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership
33
The Theory of the Four Humuors held that, if these fluids are in balance (in the right proportions) in
the body, the body would enjoy good physical and mental health. Conversely, if there is an imbalance
(if any of the fluids is reduced), the fluid that is in excess vis-a-vis the others would cause a physical
or a mental illness. See Mel Gordon, “Comedy", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA:
Microsoft Corporation, 2007.
34
The more popular definition of democracy—“government of the people, by the people, for the
people”—was given in an 1863 speech by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States.
35
The democratic countries of the world today practise representative democracy. This is because
polities are so large, both territorially and numerically, that it is not possible to assemble all citizens
that have the franchise in one place to take decisions. Hence, elected parliaments have replaced the
general assemblies of the Greek city-states. Occasionally, however, when weighty issues are to be
resolved, resort is made to direct democracy. This is by way of referendum (a vote by the entire
electorate of a country or a sub-national political entity on a specific question or questions put to it by
its government).

30
 of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man
possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to
the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty.... We do
not get into a state with our next-door neighbour if he enjoys
himself in his own way, nor do we give him the kind of black
looks which, though they do no real harm, still do hurt people's
feelings. We are free and tolerant in our private lives; but in public
affairs we keep to the law. This is because it commands our deep
respect.36

The Greeks were probably the first people to develop self-conscious political theories,
and explored every problem of government and politics. The trio of Socrates (469-399 BCE),
Plato (428?-347 BCE), and Aristotle (384-322 BCE) were pioneers among Greek political
philosophers. Socrates did not commit his thoughts to writing: he shared them orally (in
debates) with other citizens of Athens. But Plato and Aristotle wrote extensively. Plato’s The
Republic and Aristotle’s Politics are classics in political philosophy. The former founded
what we might call the leftist school in political philosophy—the school that emphasizes
reason over experience and advocates centralization. The latter founded the opposing
(rightist) school: the school that emphasizes experience over reason and advocates pluralism.

Chapter 6

36
Source: Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, translated by Rex Warner (London:
Penguin Books), sidebar in Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation.

31
 ANCIENT ROME
Present-day Rome is the capital of the Republic of Italy. In ancient times, it was the capital of
the Roman Empire. It has been called the “City of Seven Hills”, the “Eternal City”, and
“Holy City”. Within Rome lies the Vatican City, a tiny sovereign state ruled by the Pope and
serving as the capital of the Roman Catholic Church. In the first century CE, estimates of the
city’s population ranged from 800,000 to 1,600,000. (Its population today is about
2,600,000.)

Brief History to 476 CE

Almost nothing is known of the origins and early history of Rome. It is probable that
sometimes during the eight century BCE, Latin settlements on the Seven Hills of Rome
united to form the city. Late in the next century, the Latins fell under the rule of kings from
Etruria, a kingdom to the north of Rome. The Etruscan kings stimulated trade, extended the
city, and subjected other Latin settlements to Rome. The Romans learnt a lot from the
Etruscans, including street planning, triumphal processions, and gladiatorial combat. About
509 BCE, the Romans successfully revolted against Etruscan rule. At the same time, they put
an end to monarchical rule. Thus, from 509 BC to 27 BCE, Rome was a republic. From 27
BCE to 476 CE, Rome was an empire.
In the next two and half centuries after 509 BCE, up to about 250 BCE, Rome fought
several wars with other Italic peoples in the Italian peninsula. By the end of this period, it had
succeeded in uniting them under its leadership. After becoming dominant in Italy, Rome
faced a serious threat from the Phoenicians in the city-state of Carthage (in present-day
Tunisia). Rome and Carthage fought three long drawn-out and bloody wars (called the Punic
Wars). The wars were fought in 264-241 BCE, 218-201 BCE, and 149-146 BCE. The last
war ended with the total defeat of Carthage. The victors burnt Carthage to the ground, killed
its men, and enslaved its women and children.
A number of political developments that occurred during this period should be noted.
Republican Rome was marked by an enduring struggle between the upper class of rich
landowners (patricians) and the common people (plebeians). The patrician class produced the
pair of consuls (executive heads) that ruled Rome, and were its army commanders. Each pair
of consuls ruled for one year. The consuls had full executive power, but each had veto power
over the other. The patricians also dominated the state’s two legislative bodies: the Senate
and the Centuriate. Struggles for a fairer deal by the plebeians led to the creation of the
office of tribune. The tribune was meant to represent the plebeians. To do this effectively, he
was given the right to propose and veto legislation. Agitation by the plebeians for a fairer
judicial system led to the adoption of written laws (fifth century BCE).
Occasionally, in times of emergency, the Romans appointed a dictator, who would
exercise full military authority for a period of six months. In the fifth decade of the first
century BCE, Julius Caesar, a famous dictator, refused to relinquish command after his
tenure: he pressured the Senate to make him dictator for life. Concerned that Caesar would
soon assume the position of Rex (king), and probably because they were jealous of the life-
dictator, ardent republicans (led by Marcus Brutus) assassinated him (44 BCE).
Subsequently, in the next ten years, a civil war raged in Rome. Caesar’s supporters initially
fought against the conspirators that assassinated him. Later, his supporters fought among
themselves. Ultimately, Gaius Octavius, whom Caesar had chosen as his heir, defeated his

32
rivals (notably Mark Antony) and became undisputed master of Rome. In 27 BCE, the Senate
gave him the title of Augustus (exalted one). He became the emperor of what now became
the Roman Empire.
Rome continued to expand after the last Punic War. It expanded in all directions. To
the east of the Italian peninsula, it conquered Macedonia, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and
Palestine. To the north and west, it conquered Gaul (France), Spain, and the British Isles. In
the south, it conquered Egypt and the coastal area of north-west Africa. These conquests,
made in a period of over 300 years, were accomplished through brutal, merciless warfare. But
once the empire was established, Rome gave it about two centuries of peace, roughly from
the ascension of Emperor Augustus (27 BCE) to 180 CE, the year Emperor Marcus Aurelius
died. There was no major war in the empire during this period. In this era of Pax Romana
(Roman peace), the Mediterranean world was as well organized and its trade as free as it
would not be for a long time (until the nineteenth century). Owing to a number of factors that
cannot be discussed here (but which included political instability arising from the weakness
of some emperors, frequent intervention of the armed forces in the selection of emperors,
corruption, rising gap between the rich and poor, food crises, and the large influx of
“barbarians”), the Roman Empire was in decline in the last four centuries of its existence.
The situation grew so bad that Emperor Diocletian (r284-305CE) adopted a series of ruthless
reforms. He began by nationalizing the grain trade. Eventually, he brought most of the
economic activities of the empire under his direct control. He fixed ceilings on prices and
wages, prevented city workers from changing jobs, and turned the farmers into serfs by
forbidding them to leave their land. Diocletian also sought stability by persecuting Christians:
he wanted his subjects to adhere to only one religion. This system of complete state control of
the economy required an enormous bureaucracy and higher taxes. But it failed to save the
empire. When the large landowners began to fortify their homes because the government
could no longer protect them from gangs of marauders, the Roman economy drifted towards
feudalism.
The last great figure in the history of the Roman Empire was Emperor Constantine I
(r312-337 CE), known as Constantine the Great. He ruled as an absolute despot, continuing
the unifying work of Diocletian. Constantine saw that religious quarrels, arising mainly from
the persecution of Christians, weakened the empire. Thus, he issued the Edict of Milan
(313CE), the legal instrument that ended the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.
He later made Christianity the official religion of the empire.
In 330 Constantine, on the basis of his belief that Rome was no longer the strategic
centre of the empire, made Constantinople (a new city he had built near the ancient city of
Byzantium, on the Strait of Bosporus) his capital. Before he died, he divided the empire into
two groups of provinces, eastern and western, which were to be ruled by his sons and
nephews. He made Constantinople the capital of the eastern provinces, and Rome the capital
of the western provinces. Although the empire was reunited under his son Constantine II, a
permanent division grew between the two groups of provinces. (The East was made up of
Rome’s territories in the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria and Palestine; the West
included Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, Britain, and north-west Africa.) The final break
came upon the death of Theodosius I in 395 CE. The Eastern Empire, from then until its fall
in 1453, was ruled from Constantinople and after 650 CE is generally called the Byzantine
Empire. The Western Empire could not endure for long. In the fourth and fifth centuries, it
was often raided and plundered by Goths and Vandals (Germanic peoples from northern
Europe). Finally, in 476 CE, these northern peoples, whom the Romans called “barbarians”,

33
conquered Rome, deposed the reigning emperor (Romulus Augustulus), and the Western
Roman Empire dissolved thereafter.37

The Legacy of Ancient Rome

Just as the Greek civilization had adopted many innovations of the earlier civilization of the
Fertile Crescent, the Roman Civilization was heavily indebted to that of Greece. Rome did
conquer Greece, but there is much truth in the saying that “captive Greece took Rome
captive”. In religion, the Romans adopted Greek gods, whose names they changed to Latin
forms. For instance, Zeus became Jupiter in Rome, and Dionysus, the Greek god of wine,
became Bacchus. In sculpture, drama, prose, and poetry, the Romans usually followed Greek
models. By establishing a large empire, the Romans transmitted Greek civilization in their
conquered territories in Europe and North Africa. But the Roman contribution to the march
of civilization did not end with the preservation and transmission of Greek civilization. They
also made cultural innovations. Generally, the Romans excelled in the application of
intellectual principles to practical matters. Let us now see some of the highlights of the legacy
of Rome.

Latin and the Latin Script: As we have seen in Chapter 5, the Greek alphabet was carried to
Italy by Greek colonizers. In Italy, the Romans developed the Roman alphabet from it. The
Roman alphabet initially had twenty-three letters, with no combination or accented forms.
Later J developed from I, and V became U, V, and W. The Latin script is used all over
Europe (except in Greece, Russia, The Ukraine, Belarus, Macedonia, Serbia, and Bulgaria)
and South America. In Africa and Asia, it is used in all the countries where the orthographies
of indigenous languages were developed after the European conquest. The Latin script is the
simplest and best script in use in the world today.
The language of the ancient Romans was Latin, an Indo-European language. When
the Republic of Rome established the Roman Empire, the conquering legions carried Latin
through Western Europe and into North Africa and south-western Asia. The dialect of the
Roman soldiers was largely Vulgar Latin. 38 It became fused with native languages in the
conquered lands and from this fusion grew the Romans languages—French, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, Romanian, and a few others.
Neither geography nor time, however, did much to change the original, or Classical,
Latin. Thus, it facilitated communication and the spread of civilization in Europe and North
Africa. Early in the Christian era, it became the liturgical language of the Western church. (It
remains so till date, even though its use in liturgy has been greatly reduced.) As the church
became the centre of learning, Latin became the language of learning in Western Europe.
School boys from Italy to Scotland were taught to read, write and speak Latin. Before
printing was introduced in the fifteenth century, nearly all manuscripts in Western Europe
were written in Latin. Until the end of the seventeenth century, Latin was the language of
diplomacy. Latin declined after the Reformation, but it continued to be taught in the schools

37
The title of Roman emperor was revived in 800 when Charlemagne (742?-814) was crowned by
Pope Leo II. But Charlemagne’s empire and the Holy Roman Empire that followed it were Germanic
empires and were related to the earlier Roman Empire in name only.
38
Vulgar Latin, which was spoken by ordinary Romans, differed from what we might call Classical
Latin (the language of the educated people which was used in writing, education, religious rites, and
in government). In Italy, Vulgar Latin developed into Italian. More is said about this in Chapter 7.

34
of many countries until the twentieth century. Knowledge of Latin helps a student to
understand many modern European languages and many scientific terms.

Literature: Literary artists in Rome modelled their art on the works of Greek writers. But
they sought to project their patriotism in their works: they sought to glorify Rome and what
they believed to be its civilizing mission in the world. Roman writers made their mark in
epic and lyric poetry, rhetoric, history, and drama. They were the pioneers in a new genre of
literature, satire (works using irony and ridicule to reveal a subject’s faults). Romans writers
wrote in Classical Latin. Masters of Roman literature include Lucretius ((94?-55? BCE), a
poet; Virgil (70-19 BCE), also a poet, whose masterpiece was the epic poem entitled the
Aeneid; Horace (65-8 BCE), master of the ode sub-genre of poetry; and Ovid ((43 BCE-
CE 17?), who remained a major influence on narrative poets up to the Renaissance.
To non-specialists in literature, among the better known Roman writers is Cicero
(106-43 BCE), who wrote mainly in prose and is reputed to be the greatest orator of his time.
His orations remain a classic in that genre of literature. Cicero also wrote treatises in history
and philosophy. In history, the leading figures in Roman historiography include Cato the
Elder (234-149 BCE), who was the first person to write Roman history in Latin and in prose.
Others include Livy (59 BCE-17 CE), whose History of Rome is a leading source for the
early history of the Eternal City.

Architecture and Public Works: The development of vault and round-arch construction was
one of Rome’s greatest contributions to architecture. The Romans had adopted the arch from
the Etruscans. The Romans copied many styles of Greek architecture and, by combining
them with arch construction, gave their buildings a great variety of styles. The Romans built
with brick and stone, held together by mortar. The Romans produced the world’s first
hydraulic cement. The Romans excelled in large structures and public works. Among
their greatest buildings is the Pantheon (which has been preserved till today). It is a rotunda
(a circular structure) covered by a dome. The interior of the structure has a diameter of 1421/2
feet. It was a temple. Another great structure was the arena called Circus Maximus, which
could seat 180,000 persons. Others include the Basilica of Maxentius, a huge church built in
the fourth century; and the Verona Arena, a huge amphitheatre in the city of Verona (first
century CE). The Colosseum, also built in the first century CE, remains the most famous
building of Ancient Rome. It was an amphitheatre, the largest in Rome. It is estimated that it
had a seating capacity of about 50,000. We might add that the Romans went there to watch
mainly gladiatorial combats.39
Using the arch, the Romans constructed aqueducts to supply their cities with water. 40
Ancient Rome was supplied with water from the Apenine Mountains by nine aqueducts.
Three of them were still in use in the 1960s (I don’t know the situation today). An
outstanding characteristic of Roman aqueducts was the use of bridges to carry the waterways
across valleys and rivers. The greatest of them is the Pont du Guard, which is close to the
southern French city of Nimes. Built in the first century CE (perhaps in the first century
BCE), it is the best preserved architectural work of Ancient Rome: it is still standing, as it
were. The Pont du Guard is 49 metres (160 feet) above the Gard River. It was made of stone,
but without mortar; it has three levels of arches.41 Among the places in Ancient Rome to
which water flowed from the aqueducts were public baths. Statues and mosaic walls adorned
39
See "Colosseum", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007.
40
An aqueduct is large pipe or channel built to carry water from one place to the other. Modern ones
are big iron, steel or concrete pipes; ancient ones were open at the top like canals.

35
these baths. One bath built by Emperor Diocletian had 3,200 marble seats for bathers.
Wherever the Romans conquered they built public baths, whose ruins can still be seen in
many old European towns.42
The Romans also built great roads and bridges and had an excellent drainage system.
Some of the roads built in Ancient Rome, like the Apian Way, are still in use. Parts of the
Roman sewer are also still being used.

Christianity: Christianity was founded by subjects of the Roman emperors (the Jews of
Palestine) and, largely through the efforts of the missionary Paul, won numerous converts in
the Roman Empire. After Constantine I made it the official religion of the empire, the support
it received from the government helped it to spread even more rapidly. Without the support of
this large and strong empire, and of its advanced civilization, it would probably not have
spread as widely as it has done. It would be well to add that the Christianity that spread
from Rome was not as “simple” as preached and practised by the early missionaries. Many
Roman practices and thoughts were incorporated into it or used to interpret it. This issue is
discussed further in the next chapter.

Law: Roman Law, or Civil Law, is the basis of one of the two major systems of law that are
in use in the world today. The other one is the English or Common Law. The latter is an
accumulated body of legal principles based on reason as applied by past court decisions.
Since the Middle Ages, a major component of this system has been equity, a branch of law
that is applied to situations not covered by law or statutes or in situations where the strict
application of Common Law would lead to unjust or inhuman decisions. Besides, unlike Civil
Law, Common Law emphasizes precedent—something that has already been established by a
court.

Roman Law grew out of the customs of Ancient Rome. It first appeared in writing in
the law of the Twelve Tables. Prepared in 451-450 BCE by a group of ten magistrates called
the Decemvirate, its purpose was to prepare an orderly system of law that would apply to all
Roman citizens and to be known to all through its publication. The Law of the Twelve
Tables was set up at a time when Roman customs included many cruel and superstitious
practices. Some of these customs, like the stipulation that the body of a bankrupt be cut up
and shared among his creditors, became provisions of the code. Over a period of centuries,
judges changed these laws by deliberately misinterpreting the more unreasonable provisions.
By the time of Emperor Hadrian (76-138 CE), the Law of the Twelve Tables had developed
by this process into what is now referred to as Civil Law.
The first important code (a written collection of all the laws of a country arranged in a
logical order) of the Roman Empire was compiled under Theodosius II, emperor of the
Eastern Empire (438 CE). It was authorized in the same year for the Western Empire by
Valentinian II. It forms the basis of the Justinian Code, which is the most important section of
the Corpus Juris Civilis (529-565 CE). This became the most important code of Roman Law,
and subsequently the basis of modern Civil Law. Unlike Common Law, there is no provision
for equity and precedent in Roman Law. In the words of Judith Kelleher Schafer, “[t]he civil
41
See "Pont du Gard", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation,
2007.
42
The practice of bathing declined in Europe after the fall of Rome. It became a once-in-a-week affair
in many countries. It is believed that the resulting lack of personal cleanliness was, in large part,
responsible for the plagues that swept the continent in the Middle Ages.

36
law system assumes that there is only one correct solution to a specific legal problem.
Therefore, judges are not expected to use judicial discretion or to apply their own
interpretation to a case”.43 Thus, whereas a Common Law judge can create new law, the civil
law judge cannot. His brief is to apply the laws made by legislators (usually on the advice of
legal scholars), not to add to or subtract from them.
We might add that Common Law is the basis of the laws of England, Ireland, Canada
(except French-speaking Quebec), Australia, the United States (except in the state of
Louisiana, which was originally a French colony), and other countries colonized by the
British in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Civil law is the basis of the laws of
continental Europe, Scotland, Latin America, Turkey, and all former Dutch, Spanish, and
Portuguese colonies. We might also add that many legal maxims of Ancient Rome, in the
Latin language in which they were coined, are used till today to help validate legal opinions
in Common Law.

Judith Kelleher Schafer, "Civil Law”, Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft
43

Corporation, 2007.

37
 Chapter 7

THE MIDDLE AGES

Introduction

This is the period in the history of Europe that lasted from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to
the Renaissance. Up to the 1970s, there was something of a consensus among scholars that the
base year of this era was 476 CE (the year that Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of the
Western Roman Empire, abdicated) and that the terminal year was 1453 (the year the Eastern
Roman Empire, then known as the Byzantine Empire, fell). Some other scholars took 1492 (the
year the New World was “discovered”) as the terminal year. Many scholars still adopt this
periodization. But several others prefer to use 350 CE as the base year. The scholars that adopt this
(latter) periodization did not base it on a particular political event but on broad institutional
changes. They contend that it was about the middle of the fourth century of the Christian era that
the area that is called the Western Roman Empire fragmented into small, weak kingdoms and its
culture began to decline. In their view, the character of the empire had changed significantly before
476 CE, such that the emperors were mere figureheads. Thus, these scholars insist that the
abdication of Romulus Augustulus was not a landmark event, and take 1450 as the terminal year of
the Middle Ages. By this year, in the words of Barbara H. Rosenwein, “many modern European
states had taken shape. During this time, the precursors of many modern institutions, such as
universities and bodies of representative government, were created”.44

The Middle Ages is also called the Mediaeval (also spelled Medieval) Era. The name was
given to this period by the scholars of the Renaissance, who saw it as a barbaric period that
separated their age from the Classical age or Antiquity, when Greeks and Romans, as we have seen
in Chapters 6 and 7, made important contributions to the march of civilization. The people that
lived between Antiquity and Renaissance did not think they were living in the middle of any two
great eras: they believed they were living in modern times. Findings by scholars of the post-
Renaissance era have shown that, contrary to the view of their Renaissance predecessors, cultural
progress did take place in the Mediaeval Era. While scholars have retained the term Middle Ages,
they do not share the contempt of Renaissance scholars for that era.
The Middle Ages is sub-divided into three phases: the Early Middle Ages, formerly called
the Dark Ages (476-1000); the High or Central Middle Ages (1000-1300); and Late Middle Ages
(1300-1453/1500).

Highlights

Overview: After 476 CE, Europe was overrun by the peoples called “Barbarians” by the Romans.
These were Germanic groups, mainly Goths, Vandals, and Lombards. Under them, much of the

Barbara H. Rosenwein, "Middle Ages", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft
44

Corporation, 2007.

38
Classical culture and wealth of the Classical civilizations was lost. Trade and other business
transactions declined. A new civilization that was based on the teachings of the Catholic Church
emerged.

Development of Christian Doctrines: Before the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire,
serious doctrinal disputes had arisen among Church leaders. These disputes were resolved in
meetings that were called ecumenical councils. The first ecumenical council was summoned by
Emperor Constantine I in 325 CE. Called the Council of Nicaea (Nice), it was held in a city of that
name, which in the area that is Turkey today. The council was convened to resolve what was called
the Arian controversy—a dispute over the nature of Christ. Arius, a priest of Alexandria, taught
early in the fourth century that, as Christ was begotten of the Father, He was not God in the same
sense as the Father. In other words, Arius held, Christ did not have complete divinity. The bishops
at the meeting condemned Arianism (the name given to the doctrine of Arius), and adopted the
doctrine that Christ “was begotten not made” and that He was “consubstantial” (“of the same
substance”) with the Father. The summary of the doctrines of the bishops clearly established the
doctrine of the Trinity and were embodied in what is called the Nicene Creed (the Credo). This
Council of Nicaea also banned Arianism. Constantine’s successor, Constantine II, was attracted to
Arianism and made it the official faith of the Roman Empire. The Catholic faith regained royal
favour under Emperor Theodosius I (r379-395 CE), and Arianism was banned once again (379
CE).45 However, Arianism retained large numbers of adherents, especially among the Germanic
peoples. Catholicism eventually triumphed over the Arian faith by the end of the sixth century.
While the struggle against Arianism continued in the fifth century, another serious doctrinal
dispute arose between Catholics and Donatists, a schismatic group that arose in North Africa which
believed that only morally upright priests should administer sacraments. The Catholic Church
triumphed. In the same (fifth) century, North African-born Augustine (canonized by the Catholic
Church as St. Augustine) emerged as the leading Christian theologian. Author of Confessions and
The City of God, Augustine (354-430 CE) led the Catholic Church in theological and physical
struggles (persecution) against Manichaeism, Donatism, and Pelagianism. 46 He developed the
doctrines of original sin, redemption by the grace of God, and predestination. Augustine suggested

45
The proscription of Arainism was sealed in the Edict of Thessalonica which was issued on 27 February
380 CE by three emperors—Theodosius I of the Eastern Roman Empire, Gratian (r359-383 CE), and
Valentinian II (r375-392 CE). The last two were joint rulers of the Western empire in 375-383 CE. The edict
gave the name of “Catholic Christians” to the followers of the Nicene Creed and declared the Arians to be
heretics. Here is the English translation of the edict:
“It is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our Clemency and Moderation should
continue to profess that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has
been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter,
Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of
the Gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in
a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for
the others, since, in our judgement they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the
ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches.
They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second the
punishment of our authority which in accordance with the will of Heaven we shall decide to inflict”.
Source: Codex Theodosianus, xvi. 1,2, cited in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict of Thessalonica.
46
Manichaeism was a religious doctrine founded in the second century CE by a Persian called Mani. Based
on the teachings of Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Gnosticism, it taught that the universe is divided into
the realms of good and evil. The first realm is that of the spirit, while the second is that of matter. Good and
evil would engage in a perpetual struggle. Manichaeism was a major rival to Christianity up to the fifth
century.
Pelagianism was a belief that man could earn salvation through his efforts, without relying on the
grace of God. It also denied the existence of original sin.
39
that the Jews should be humiliated, and that prostitution should be tolerated because suppressing it
would lead to worse sins like bestiality and homosexuality.47
The final split between the Western and Eastern sections of the Roman Empire resulted,
among other things, in a major division of Christendom into the Western (Catholic) and Eastern
(Orthodox) churches. This is called the Great Schism of the Eastern and Western churches. While
the Pope in Rome was the sole head of the Western Church, the Eastern Church had up to four
autonomous patriarchs (in Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem). The main
doctrinal dispute between East and West arose in 589 CE when, at the Third Council of Toledo, the
bishops of the Western Church added what is called the filioque clause to the Nicene Creed. The
addition was that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son”. (The original doctrine
was that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.) The Eastern Church objected to the addendum
on two grounds: that it was unilateral and, more importantly, that it de-emphasized the primacy of
the Father. In 1054, the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople mutually excommunicated each
other over this issue. The dispute remains unresolved, but the mutual excommunications were
withdrawn in 1965 in an attempt to minimize hostility between the two churches.
The term Great Schism also refers to the temporary split in the Western Church from 1378
to 1417. This began in April 1378, following the election of Pope Urban VI. Soon after his election,
he alienated the cardinals that elected him by allegedly being harsh, extravagant, and trying to
reconstitute the College of Cardinals (so as to replace many French cardinals with Italians).
Subsequently, fifteen French cardinals, in Agnani (an Italian city), deposed Urban VI and elected
another Pope, who assumed the title of Clement IV (15 September 1378). Their reason was that
they had elected Urban VI under duress: according to them, they were forced by a hostile crowd in
Rome to elect an Italian as Pope. In response, Urban VI excommunicated Clement IV and his
supporters and created his own Council of Cardinals. Subsequently, with the support of the
French king, Clement IV and the French cardinals moved to Avignon, France. Both Popes got
support from different kingdoms in Western Christendom. Generally, the people of each kingdom
adhered to the Pope favoured by their monarch. Several efforts to end the schism did not succeed
until 1417, when the Council of Constance (1414-1418) deposed the rival Popes and elected a new
one, who became Martin V (r1417-1431). The Great Schism helped to further reduce the influence
of the Catholic Church, a process that had started much earlier, as the church increasingly focused
on revenue collection and quest for political influence, neglecting the work of giving spiritual
direction to the faithful. We might add that the loss of influence enabled reform-minded elements
within the church to propose far-reaching reforms, which led to the split of the Western Church, in
the sixteenth century.48

Barbarian kingdoms: The kingdoms established by the so-called Barbarians were unstable.
Among the political developments of the Early Middle Ages were the rise and fall of two Germanic
dynasties—the Merovingian and Carolingian. Both were established by the Franks, a Germanic
tribe. The name of the Merovingian dynasty is derived from Merovig, a legendary chief of the
Salian Franks. The first real ruler was Clovis (r481-511 CE). With the support of the Catholic
Church, he conquered many territories which he constituted into a kingdom. The kingdom
embraced most of what is now France and south-western Germany. After his death, the empire was
divided among his four sons. There were civil wars among the Franks in 567-613 CE and 674-687
CE. After 639 CE, the empire was heavily decentralized, and royal power was superseded by the
power of noble families. One of the noble families was the Carolingian. In 751 CE, a Carolingian
47
See Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, "Saint Augustine", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA:
Microsoft Corporation, 2007; and Jennifer James, "Prostitution", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD].
Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007.
48
The split in Western Christendom, called the Reformation, occurred in the sixteenth century. It is not
treated here because it started after the terminal year of this study.

40
palace official, later called Pepin the Short, deposed Childeric II, the last Merovingian king, and
established a Carolingian dynasty.
One of Pepin the Short’s sons, Charles the Great but better known as Charlemagne (742-
814 CE), expanded the area of the defunct Merovingian empire and reunited Western Europe
(excluding the British Isles). On Christmas day in 800 CE, he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor
by Pope Leo III. Under him, there was a cultural revival, which is called the Carolingian
Renaissance. Charles the Great was a patron of scholars and an enthusiastic supporter of learning.
He supported the copying of books (a practice called scriptoria), thus helping to preserve for later
ages many of the works of the past. He also established schools throughout the empire for the
training of priests, and a palace school for the sons of the nobility. Charlemagne also used his
position to enhance the authority and power of the Catholic Church. He established the theory (and
to some extent the practice) of dual rule by monarch and Pope. Wherever he established his rule,
he protected the church, and in return the church urged its adherents to accept him as their king.
This theory was to remain dominant in Europe up to the early nineteenth century.
After Charlemagne death, his successors could not hold the empire together. In 843 the
empire was divided, in the Treaty of Verdun, into three kingdoms. In the tenth century, the area
formed two kingdoms—West Francia (roughly France today) and East Francia (roughly Germany
today).

Feudalism: This was the prevailing form of political organization in Western and Central Europe
during the Central Middle Ages. It was a system of government based on personal agreements
between members of the nobility who possessed military power. While feudal practices varied in
different regions of Europe, a common feature was that a hierarchical arrangement which was
pyramidal in structure was established among different strata of nobles. At the top of the pyramid
was the king, who was the lord or suzerain (“a ruler or nation that controls a dependent nation's
international affairs but allows it to control its internal affairs”) 49. A group of dukes (high-ranking
noblemen who ruled territories called duchies) and counts (high-ranking noblemen lower in rank
than dukes) were the lord’s vassals. Each vassal had many lesser vassals, each of whom had his
own smaller vassals. At the bottom of the pyramid were knights (tenants of a feudal lord who were
required to serve as soldiers on horseback). Under the feudal system, lord and vassal owed each
other loyalty and protection. The vassal performed services for his lord, and in return the lord
granted him a fief (anything of value but usually land, with the labour of the peasants living on it
and jurisdiction over the peasants). All fiefs were owned by the king, but a vassal held other rights
to his fief as long as he continued to perform the services he was obliged to render to his lord. The
entire kingdom was divided into fiefs, except for the land held personally by the king. Except the
king, every landholder was somebody’s vassal. Feudal tenure was hereditary. When a vassal died,
his heir inherited his fief after paying homage to the lord, which included taking another oath of
fealty. In many kingdoms of Western Europe, but typically in France, the power of local rulers
(nobles) was stronger than that of kings.
Generally, feudal Europe was divided into three estates (what would be called classes
today). These estates consisted of nobles (king and vassals), the clergy (priests of the Catholic
Church), and the common people (freemen and serfs). The freeman was a tenant farmer, who paid
rent to his lord. He was sometimes required to perform labour services for the lord. He was free to
leave the manor (a house and the land surrounding it, owned by a noble). However, while in the
manor he was subject to the lord’s jurisdiction. The serf was a peasant. He could not leave the
manor or marry without his lord’s consent. He owned no land; and his personal possessions could
be taken by the lord. However, the serf was not a slave and, thus, could not be sold. Besides, he had

Definition is taken from the Encarta dictionary, Microsoft® Encarta® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft
49

Corporation.
41
the right to take his grievances to the manorial court, and to initiate criminal charges against his
lord in the royal court.
Feudalism started to decline in the twelfth century. Developments that led to its decline
include the growth of towns, the revival of trade (which led to the widespread use of money), and
changes in the methods of warfare (which de-emphasized cavalry). In the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, royal authority increased and strong monarchies emerged. Feudalism was formally
abolished in England in 1660 and in France in 1789. The last European country to abolish it was
Russia (1861).
Feudalism has left important legacies to mankind. Chief among them is the concept of
government as an agreement between the ruler and the ruled. 50 This was elaborated by the political
philosopher John Locke in the seventeenth century. Many political units (like counties and
parishes) and local offices (like sheriff, constable, and bailiff) originated in the feudal era. Many
rules of etiquette (like courtesy towards women) developed in the same period.

Recreation: Amusements of the Middle Ages included hunting, attending tournaments, duels,
listening to songs and stories by minstrels and bards, fairs, and church festivals. Plays called
miracle, morality, and mystery plays, which were based on the miracles of the saints and other
stories in the Bible, were often staged during church festivals.

Islam: One of the major developments in the Middle Ages was the rise of Islam. This religion was
founded in Arabia in the seventh century. A monotheistic, exclusivist and expansionist religion like
Christianity, Islam inspired its first adherents, the Arabs, to embark on wars of conquests that took
them and their religion to North Africa, the rest of south-west Asia, to Central Asia, and to India. In
the next few centuries, Islam displaced Christianity as the dominant religion in North Africa and
south-west Asia, and made significant gains in Central Asia and India. It later spread to other parts
of the world. Among the religions of the world, Islam is next to Christianity today in number of
adherents.51 Among the notable military successes of Muslim armies in the Middle Ages was the
conquest of Constantinople in 1453. This brought an end to the Byzantine Empire.

The Crusades: These were a series of military campaigns by the Christian countries of Western
Europe which were meant to free the Holy Places (Palestine) from Muslim control. The campaigns
started in the last decade of the eleventh century and lasted till about 1300. The campaign against
Muslims was later extended to other areas outside Palestine. The other areas included the Iberian
Peninsula and southern Italy (which were under Muslim rule), and northern Europe (where the
objective was to convert pagans to Christianity).
50
The most famous of the agreements in this respect was the Magna Carta (Great Charter) which was issued
in 1215 by King John of England. The king was pressured by his barons to issue the document. In the
charter, King John promised to rule his realm and deal with his vassals according to law. The charter
contained sixty-three clauses. The three most important ones as follows: one that required the king to get the
approval of his barons before levying taxes; one that established the principle of equal access to the law
(which provided that neither exorbitant fees nor other restrictions would be used to prevent any person from
getting justice); and one that stipulated that nobody shall be punished without due process of law. The
charter has been used as a basis to establish several other laws or legal principles that were not explicitly
provided in any of its sixty-three clauses. They include the right to trial by jury, the right to habeas corpus
(order from a court to produce a detained person so as to determine the legality of his detention), and the
principle of taxation without representation. The Magna Carta remains influential till today. See Emily Zack
Tabuteau, "Magna Carta", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007.
51
2005 estimates of the adherents of the religions of the world by proportion indicate that about 33% of the
world population are Christians, while about 21% are Muslims. See William E. Paden, "Religion",
Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007. 2010 estimates show that
Muslims form between 19% and 21% of the world population. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion.

42
 Western Christendom embarked upon the holy wars in response to an appeal to the Pope in
1094 by Emperor Alexius I of the Byzantine Empire. The emperor wanted military help against the
Seljuk Turks who had overrun much of his empire. Pope Urban II, the Catholic pontiff at the time,
was persuaded that it was necessary to help his Orthodox counterpart. In the following year, the
Pope began to campaign for a crusade against the Muslims. He promised indulgence (remission of
punishment for sins) for any Christian that participated in the holy war. Thousands of warriors in
different Christian kingdoms responded with the cry, “God wills it”! They resolved to follow “the
way of the Holy Sepulchre” in order to extend God’s kingdom on earth. Some of the warriors were
also actuated by hopes of military glory and material gain.
The Crusaders won many early victories, including the capture of Jerusalem in 1099. They
established Christian mini-kingdoms (“Crusader states”) in south-west Asia, like the Kingdom of
Jerusalem. As the Crusader states were surrounded by numerically larger Muslim states, the
Crusaders embarked upon further campaigns to send supplies to them. Following the rise of the
Ottoman Turks in the fourteenth century, Muslims gained the upper hand in the conflict, and, in the
next two centuries, swept the Crusaders from Palestine, and conquered Constantinople and much of
south-eastern Europe. However, the Crusaders recaptured the Muslim-held areas in Spain, Portugal,
and southern Italy. These areas have remained predominantly Christian.
The Crusades helped to bring Western Europe in closer contact with the Middle East and,
by extension, the entire Asian continent. Western Europeans learnt much from the East, and also
left their cultural imprint there. The Crusades brought prosperity to Venice, Genoa, and other
Italian cities. These cities prospered by providing transport to the Crusaders and helping to supply
them with many of the products they needed. Italian merchants dominated trade in the
Mediterranean. The wealth of these cities became the economic base of the Italian Renaissance.
The successes of Italian cities in the Mediterranean inspired the Portuguese and Spaniards to
embark on a search for a sea route to Asia, from the fifteenth century.

Philosophy: The leading intellectual movement of the mediaeval era was Scholasticism. This was
a philosophical and theological movement that tried to reconcile faith (the Christian scripture) with
reason. Its leading exponent was Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), an Italian. His main work was
entitled Summa Theologica. Aquinas held that the truths of science are discovered by reasoning
from the facts of experience. On the other hand, he also held, the tenets of the Christian religion are
beyond rational comprehension and, while not contrary to reason, must be accepted on faith. Other
leading philosophers-cum-theologians of the Middle Ages include St. Anselm, Moses Maimonides,
St. Bonaventure, and Roger Bacon.

Literature: In the domain of language and literature, the most important change in the Mediaeval
Europe was probably the decline of Latin and the development of the Romance languages. As we
have seen in Chapter 6, the Romance languages include Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and
Romanian. Before they became national/official languages, each of them was derisively called a
vernacular (the common spoken language of a people, as distinct from formal written, official, or
literary language.) As Latin went increasingly out of general use, it became inconvenient to
continue using it as an official and literary language. The change that was needed began slowly in
the Middle Ages, and was facilitated by leading writers in different linguistic communities who
began to publish in the vernaculars. Their efforts brought prestige to these languages. Eventually
(from the seventeenth century) the vernaculars became national, official, and literary languages.
The leading literary genres of the Mediaeval Era were the saga (long story), epic (stories
about heroic deeds), and ballads (narrative song). The masterpieces of the era were Dante’s Divine
Comedy and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (fourteenth century). These and other
leading works of the era were in verse (in the form of poetry). Fiction (imaginative work in prose)
emerged as an important literary genre in the sixteenth century.

43
The Black Death: This was the most terrible pandemic52 in the history of Mediaeval Europe. It is
also called a bubonic plague (because rats were its main carriers). It occurred in the mid-fourteenth
century, peaking between 1347 and 1351. There is no consensus among scientists and historians on
the origin of this plague. Europeans writers of the Mediaeval Era believed that it began in China.
What the evidence supports is that it first struck the Middle East (Egypt and south-west Asia), and
then spread westwards to north-west Africa and Europe.
The plague had two main forms. One affected the lungs and led to the spitting of blood. The
other form was marked by the appearance of large nymph modes on the groin, armpit, or neck.
Nearly all stricken persons died within five days. Rats and fleas (especially fleas that preyed on
rats) carried the disease, and the contagion spread from person to person.
It is estimated that, during 1347-1351, the bubonic plague killed about 25 million persons in
Europe, about one-third of the continent’s population. It re-appeared in less virulent form thrice
before the end of the fourteenth century; even after 1400, it returned many times until 1722 (in
Marseille, France).
The Black Death led to the adoption of public health measures by many European countries.
Among other measures, towns began to investigate any suspicious diseases, created special
hospitals to keep the ill, tried to reduce overcrowding, and restricted the movements of people
during times of plague. Travellers were required to carry medical certificates to show that they had
not suffered from any epidemic diseases before. European governments created medical boundaries
(cordon sanitaire) between their territories and areas in the Middle East. Ships coming from the
Middle East were quarantined before passengers and goods were unloaded. Those who tried to
evade the quarantines where shot. It seems that the above measures were effective: the bubonic
plague disappeared in Europe long before it died out in the Middle East and central and eastern
Asia. We might add that the measures taken to control the plague were adopted by governments of
the modern era, and are still being used.
The other effects of the Black Death are briefly mentioned here. The plague hastened the
break-up of Mediaeval society. Agricultural production declined heavily. Production of other goods
fell, resulting in scarcity and higher prices. Labour also became scarce, and wages rose. During the
confusion, many serfs left the manors to which they were attached. To deal with the resultant
economic problem, governments tried to freeze wages and prices, and tried to force serfs that had
left their manors to return. In response, peasants revolted in England, France, and a few other
countries. The Black Death led to xenophobia and terror. Jews, as well as lepers, were accused of
poisoning wells and the air. Many were massacred, being often burned or drowned in marshes. The
attack on Jews, which occurred mainly in 1348-51, was most severe in France, Switzerland, and
Germany. A new religious sect, the Flagellants, emerged. They believed that the plague was God’s
punishment for man’s sins, and flogged themselves to win God’s mercy. The Flagellants travelled
from town to town, seeking to convince other Christians to join them. As towns began to close their
gates against them, and as the disease continued to afflict them despite their efforts to win God’s
favour, they were forced to disband.

Advances in education and technology: During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church owned vast
lands and controlled public education. Its control ensured that there was no freedom of thought. It
suppressed heretical ideas and punished heretics severely.53 Yet the church was concerned to
advance learning. Thus, among other things, it established the first universities in Europe. These
52
A pandemic is an epidemic (fast spreading disease) that is widespread and affects people in many
countries. For more information about this sub-section, see Duane J. Oshein, "Black Death", Microsoft®
Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007.
53
It is needful to make clear the meaning of heresy. It simply means opinions or beliefs that are contrary to
the doctrines of a particular religion. The word particular is important, because many beliefs that are
considered heretical by one religion are approved doctrines in other religions. Indeed, some of the beliefs of
every religion or denominational or sect are considered heretical by some other religious groups.
44
were in Bologna, Paris, and Oxford (twelfth century).
The Middle Ages witnessed new inventions and new ways of organizing the production and
distribution of goods. The inventions of the era include the following: the cannon, spectacles, and
the artesian well. From the East, especially China, and through the Middle East, Europeans adopted
the gunpowder, mariner’s compass, silk, and the astrolabe. Europeans made important advances in
the construction of ships and clocks, and in cartography (map making). Portugal led other European
nations in making these advances in maritime science and technology.54 The advances enabled
Europeans to explore and, over time, conquer and/or dominate the rest of the world.
Beginning in the eleventh century, following the restoration of trade and the growth of
towns in Europe, guilds were formed in the continent. These were associations that were meant to
give help and advice to its members, and to make regulations and set standards for their trade.
There were two kinds of guilds—the merchant and the craft guild. The guilds played a major role in
the development of municipal government. The towns of Mediaeval Europe developed outside the
feudal system. Guilds arose to protect commerce in the absence of effective government and law.
The guilds obtained charters from the local lord or king. The early merchant guilds included both
merchants and craftsmen. Members of the guild regulated the economic life of the town, provided
for many of the social services needed by its members, established schools for the children of its
members, and promoted the interests of the Catholic Church. In most towns, the merchant guild
became the municipal government. The craft guild approved the admission of new members,
supervised the quality of goods produced, regulated the hours of work, and elected wardens to
enforce its regulations. The craft guild included three classes: masters, journeymen, and
apprentices. To protect their privileges, masters used their power in the guild to make transition
from journeyman to master difficult. Consumers benefited from the existence of the craft guild,
because of the high standards of the works they produced. But they paid a price for it: by
eliminating competition, the guilds deprived them of the likelihood of getting cheaper products
through competition among producers.55
The rise of the craft guilds weakened the merchant guilds, and there was a long period of
conflict between them. The former prevailed. Within the craft guilds there were bitter conflicts
between masters and journeymen. The latter formed their own associations, called yeomen guilds,
to fight for better working conditions. Occasionally they used strikes to fight their cause. The

The greatest individual credit for these advances should go to a Portuguese prince Henry, fittingly called
54

Henry the Navigator. The following extract tells us a bit more about the man.

“Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), prince of Portugal, noted as the patron

of navigation and exploration, born in Oporto. He was the third son of John
I, king of Portugal. Henry participated in the capture of Ceuta in North
Africa from the Moors in 1415. Subsequently he made his residence at
Sagres, Portugal, near Cape Saint Vincent, and there established an
observatory and the first school for navigators in Europe. Henry also made
improvements in the art of shipbuilding. The caravel, a sailing ship, was
designed at Sagres. He made no voyages himself, but under his direction
many important expeditions were undertaken along the west coast of Africa.
Henry's navigators reached Madeira in 1420, sailed around Cape Bojador in
1434, sailed to Cape Blanc in 1441, rounded Cap Vert in 1445, and reached
the mouth of the Gambia River in present-day Gambia about 1446”.

Source: "Henry the Navigator", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation,
2007.
55
For further basic information about the guilds, see New Standard Encyclopedia, c.v. “Guild” (Chicago:
Standard Education Society, 1965), G-282-282. See also "Guild", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD].
Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007.

45
yeomen guilds are considered the forerunners of modern trade unions.
The guilds declined after the fifteenth century. This was partly because they were seen as
being greedy. It was the view of other members of society that the guilds sought to protect their
interests without regard to the welfare of entire society. As feudalism gave way to strong
monarchies, strong central governments reduced the powers of subordinate authorities, including
the guilds. France abolished the guilds in the eighteenth century. The German states and Britain
abolished them in the following century. Besides the activities of government, the guilds declined
because of the rise of a new economic system, capitalism. Using their machines, capitalists
produced goods more quickly and efficiently than the guild masters. The new system encouraged
large scale production, competition among producers, and the search for markets by producers. The
guild masters could not just compete.

46
 Chapter 8

THE JEWS AND ARABS

THE JEWS

The Jews,56 called Hebrews in the Bible, are an ancient people of Semitic stock. They emerged as a
people of a distinct cultural identity about 3,000 years ago. The early (pre-Christian era) history of
the Jews, which is filled with numerous supernatural accounts, is contained in the Old Testament of
the Bible. Here is a summary. The Jewish nation was founded by a man called Abraham, who is
believed to have migrated from southern Mesopotamia (“Ur of the Chaldees”) to Canaan (the area
called Palestine by the Romans, which covers present-day Israel, the Israeli-occupied territories,
and parts of Lebanon and Jordan). Abraham’s descendants were compelled by famine to migrate to
Egypt, where, after being initially treated well (when a Jew was the chief minister of Egypt), they
were enslaved. Led by Moses, a prophet and lawgiver, they later returned to Canaan, which they re-
occupied after waging several wars with the peoples that were living there. One of the places the
Jews conquered was Jerusalem, which became their capital. Jewish society in Canaan was initially
a non-centralized one. The Jews later founded a kingdom, with Saul as their first king. The
kingdom was later split into two: Samaria and Judea. As we have seen, Samaria was conquered by
Assyria (eight century BC); it never regained its independence. Judea fell to the Chaldeans in 586
BCE, but the Judeans were later allowed to return to their homeland. Independent Judea fell to the
Romans in the first century BCE.
What separated the Jews from most of their neighbours was their belief in one God (a
practice called monotheism). Their neighbours—the other civilizations of the Fertile Crescent—
worshipped many gods (polytheism). The Jews learnt the art of writing from the Phoenicians, but
developed an alphabet of their own. The greatest legacies of the Jews are two of the world’s leading
monotheistic religions: Judaism and Christianity. Judaism is a monotheistic religion: Jews
believe that there is only one God, who created heaven and earth, and who is all powerful
(omnipotent), all knowing (omniscient), and everywhere (omnipresent). Judaism is a scriptural
religion: the beliefs and laws of the religion are contained in many sacred writings which are all
embodied in the Bible (specifically the section of the Bible called the Old Testament by Christians).
Judaism is an exclusivist religion: Jews believe they are God’s chosen people—that they are
specially favoured by God who placed them above all other nations. Thus, they did not (and do not)
seek to convert non-Jews to their faith. Christianity was founded and initially propagated by Jews.
But the bulk of Jews did not accept it. Thus, Christianity became basically a religion of non-Jews
(“Gentiles”). Islam accepted many of the beliefs and practices of Judaism.
The Jews were forced into exile by the Romans in the second century CE. They were able to
maintain their cultural identity outside their homeland (the Diaspora). Thus, they are, in the words
of Jay M. Harris, “among the oldest of the many peoples known to history”. 57 Contrastingly, we
might add, the peoples of other ancient civilizations, like the Sumerians, Akkadians, Amorites, and

56
On the basis of its antiquity, the civilization of the Jews should have been treated much earlier in this
book. However, because what we have here about the subject is too short to form a separate chapter, and
because the author would like to draw attention to the historic relations between Jews and Arabs (whose
disputes are an important issue in world politics today), this summary of Jewish history is detached from its
rightful chronological slot and fitted into this chapter.
57
Jay M. Harris, "Jews", Microsoft® Student 2008 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007.

47
Chaldeans, later lost their cultural identities: most were assimilated by the Arabs and Persians in
later centuries. The Jews refused to assimilate. Basically because of this, they were mistrusted by
the peoples of the various places where they settled. Thus, at different times and in different
countries in the Diaspora, Jews suffered discrimination and, occasionally (like in the aftermath of
the Black Death), persecution. But there were also places and periods they were tolerated and their
culture allowed to flourish. In such places, like in Muslim-dominated Spain (from the eight century
to the fifteenth), individual Jews made important contributions (in philosophy, medicine, public
administration, astronomy, and other branches of learning) to the march of civilization.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Jews in the Diaspora formed a political
movement that was dedicated to the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This goal was seen
by some of them (the Zionists) as the ultimate solution to the persecution of Jews in the Diaspora.
The place to which they wanted to return (Palestine) was then being occupied by Arabs (who had
conquered the area in the seventh century). Despite the opposition of the Palestinians (the Arabs
living in Palestine) and indeed of the entire Arab world, the Jews succeeded in establishing a
nation-state in Palestine (the State of Israel) in 1948. Since then, relations between Jews and Arabs
(who also claim descent from Abraham, whose language is related to Hebrew, and whose religion
is closely related historically and in its basic tenets to Judaism) have been marked with tension and,
occasionally, military conflicts. Today, there are about fourteen million Jews in the world. The
majority of them live in Israel and the United States. There are sizeable Jewish communities in
Canada, Western Europe, Russia, and Argentina.58

THE ARABS

The Arabs59 and the Chinese were the leading culture carriers of the Mediaeval Era. The Arabs are
Caucasians. Like the Akkadians, Jews, and Phoenicians, they are Semites. Their original home is
Arabia, a desert peninsula comprising the present-day countries of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen,
United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, and the island state of Bahrain. Because of its proximity to
the cradles of civilization, the Arabs achieved advanced civilization at least three millennia before
the Christian era. Kingdoms were first established in Arabia in the second millennium BCE. In the
fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era, large numbers of Arabs migrated eastwards and
northwards. The rate of migration increased in the seventh century, when Islam was founded there.
The first Muslims waged a series of wars against fellow Arabs that opposed them. Emerging
victorious in the wars, they united the Arabs under the banner of the new religion and, as we have
seen in Chapter 7, embarked upon wars of conquest that enabled them conquer and settle in nearby
lands. Today Arabs are the majority population in the following countries: Algeria, Bahrain,
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauretania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. They constitute large minorities in Sudan and
Israel.

The Legacies of the Arabs

Islam: This remains the most important legacy of the Arabs to mankind. Islam was founded in the
Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century by Arabs. It soon became a world religion. 60 The spread
of Islam has been accompanied with many practices which were developed or sanctioned by the
58
Ibid.
59
Up to modern times, the Arabs, and by extension other Muslim peoples of the Middle East, were called the
Saracens in the West. The name was originally given to a north Arabian tribe by the Greeks. See Phillip K.
Hitti, The Arabs: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943, rev. ed. Regnery, 1996).
60
Details on the origin, doctrines, spread and impact of Islam (especially in Africa) are covered in the course
ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY IN AFRICA.
48
early Muslims in Arabia. They include the following: the “Muslim” attire (characterized mainly by
loose-fitting dresses for both men and women); dresses that cover all the seductive parts of the
female anatomy, such that men are not led into temptation; confinement of women to homes
(purdah); and inheritance of property by women. Others are: the separation of the sexes in schools
and other public places; the practice of polygamy (with a man permitted to marry up to four wives);
punishments like amputation and stoning to death; ban of alcohol and pork consumption;
prohibition of lottery and other games of chance; dawn-to-dusk fasting for thirty days each year
(followed by a two-day celebration during which rams are usually slaughtered); and political views
that support the combination of spiritual and secular authority, and of executive, legislative, and
judicial authority. In predominantly Muslim countries, Friday is either the only day of the week or
one of the two days of the week that public workers do not go to work. In countries with large
Muslim populations, like Nigeria, Muslims in public offices usually work till mid-day on Fridays,
and then go the mosque for the Friday prayer.

Islamic Architecture: This refers to the designs of buildings associated with Islam or with the
countries where Muslims are predominant. The mosque (the Islamic place of worship) was initially
a very simple structure that had no adornments. Over time it was developed to a complex and
highly adorned structure. Common external features of mosque include the minaret (a tall, slender
tower from which the muezzin or announcer calls the faithful to prayer). Another common feature is
the dome (hemispherical roof).61 In many mosques, the floor and walls are decorated with mosaics
(designs made with bits of stone, coloured glass, or marble). Great monuments of architecture
associated with the Islamic world in the Middle Ages include the Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem
(seventh century), the Great Mosque at Samarra, Iraq, which has a giant spiral minaret (ninth
century) the Great Mosque of Cordoba in Spain (eight century), and the Court of Lions, a palace in
Alhambra, Spain (fourteenth century).62

Arabic: This is the language of the Arabs. It has many dialects, some of which are not mutually
intelligible. But Standard Arabic, similar to the one used in the Koran, is the language of education,
all forms of writing, and of media broadcasts in all Arab countries, from Morocco to Iraq. Because
the Koran was written in it, Standard Arabic is considered sacred. Thus, it is the liturgical language
of Muslims all over the world.
The Arabic script, the body of symbols used in writing Arabic, was derived from that of
Aramaic (the language spoken by Jesus), and has been adopted by several other languages, e.g.
Persian, Urdu, and Malay. It is written from right to left; it has many sub-dots; but it has no
symbols for vowel sounds.

Others: The Arabs expanded the medical knowledge of the Greeks. They translated the works of
Plato and Aristotle, especially the latter, and made commentaries. Their works in this respect
helped to, as it were, reconnect Western Europeans to the Classics (Greek and Roman literature),
and, thus, led to the Renaissance. In mathematics, the Arabs were influenced by Indians as well as

61
There had been domes in Christian churches before the founding of Islam. Many churches, including St.
Peter’s Basilica in Rome (the Pope’s church) are domed. But in this part of the world (sub-Saharan Africa),
domes are more common in mosques, such that many Christians ignorantly associate it with Islam. Thus, to
illustrate, sometime in the late 1990s, a Christian organization in Nigeria protested the doming of the city
gate of Abuja. The organization held that the dome was evidence of an alleged plan by Muslims to Islamize
Abuja!
62
In the seventeenth century, the Islamic world produced two great architectural monuments that deserve to
be mentioned here. These are the Mosque of Sultan Ahmet I in Istanbul, Turkey, and the Taj Mahal, a
complex structure containing a mausoleum and a mosque, in Agra, India.

49
the civilizations of the Fertile Crescent. One of their main contributions in this branch of learning
was the decimal system. The Indians had first used the mathematical digits 1-9. The Arabs added
zero, and, by making 10 the basic unit in their numerical system, created the decimal system. In the
ninth century, the Arabs made important contributions to the development of the branch of
mathematics called algebra (“the branch of mathematics in which symbols, usually letters of the
alphabet, represent unknown numbers”).63 Ancient Egyptians and Babylonians had used algebra;
the Arab mathematician al-Khwarizmi developed it into a separate branch of mathematics. The
word algebra comes from the Arabic word al-jabr (which means restoration).
In their quest to improve their knowledge of astronomy, and to help determine the direction
of Mecca, the Arabs also made important contributions to the branch of geometry called
trigonometry (eight century). Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, an astronomer, was a leading innovator in this
sub-branch of learning.
Other notable Arab contributors to the advancement of learning are mentioned briefly here.
Abu-Abdullah Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Battani (c.858-929) was a mathematician and astronomer.
Among other things, he introduced the use of sines in mathematics, and formulated certain
principles of trigonometry. In astronomy, he helped to improve on existing calculations about the
length of the year. Alhazen (965-1040?), born in Basra (present-day Iraq), made important
contributions in optics, astronomy, and mathematics. His most original contributions were in optics,
where he used geometry and anatomy to develop a theory that explains vision. Abu Zayd Abd-Ar-
Rahman Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) was the leading Islamic historian of the Mediaeval era. Born in
Tunis, he wrote extensively about North Africa and the Near East. He is better known today for his
contribution to the philosophy of history. He is associated with the cyclical view of history—that
kingdoms rise and fall in accordance with certain laws which can be discovered through study. Al-
Idrisi (1100-1165?) was one of the greatest geographers and travel writers of the mediaeval world.
He travelled extensively in the Mediterranean world and lived in Palermo, Italy. His works are one
of the important sources for the history of the mediaeval states of Western Sudan.

63
Microsoft® Encarta® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation.
50
 Chapter 9

THE RENAISSANCE
Origin and Meaning

In a broad sense, this refers to period from about 1350 to 1600. This was, in the words of Robert
Lamm, “a remarkable period of intellectual energy and artistic creativity that ushered out the
Middle Ages, and set the stage for the emergence of the modern world”. 64 In a restricted and more
popular sense, the term refers to the revival of interest in antiquity (classical Greek and Roman
culture). Participants in the movement studied classical poetry, history, languages, architecture,
rhetoric (rules for writing influential prose or speeches), philosophy, and art.
The word renaissance means rebirth. The participants in the movement believed that they
had rediscovered the superiority of Greek and Roman culture after several centuries of darkness.
Today, it is recognized that interest in the classics started before the Renaissance. Thus, there was
no abrupt transition to the study of the classics in the fourteenth century. Thomas Aquinas and
other philosophers of his age had studied the classics, especially the works of Aristotle.
The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to Germany, France, and England, as well as
other European countries.

Characteristics

The characteristics of the Renaissance are mentioned briefly below.

 There was widespread interest in classical literature and art. Before this age, only
professionals (philosophers, theologians, and writers) took interest in the classics. In the
Renaissance, other literate members of the society (including kings, nobles, soldiers, and
merchants) joined them. The boost to the study of the classics, especially in the second half
of the fifteenth century, was due partly to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which led to
the flight of many classical scholars from the Byzantine Empire to Western Europe.
 Knowledge derived from experience was emphasized over knowledge derived from
revelation.
 Moral questions rather religious ones were emphasized. Concern to improve life on earth
took precedence over concern to go to heaven. There was, in the words of Lamm, “a union
of love and reason that stressed earthly fulfilment rather than mediaeval preparations for
paradise”.65 This was the main teaching of the Humanists, members of a new philosophical
movement that, among other things, rejected Scholasticism. The Humanists held that the
aims of classical education (which according to them was meant to produce professionals)
were narrow. According to them, Scholastics sought to produce professionals (priests,
physicians, and the like) who would perform certain tasks. They added that education
should not only be concerned with intellectual development for specific tasks, but with the
total development of the human person. Thus, they stressed that there was need for physical
and moral (not necessarily religious) education.

64
Robert C. Lamm & Neal M. Cross, The Humanities in Western Culture: A Search for Human Values
(Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, 1989), 249.
65
Ibid.

51
  Individualism (the pursuit of personal happiness and independence) was encouraged. The
individual was permitted to take credit or glory and, if possible, wealth from his creative
efforts. Artists began to sign their works. Before this period, artists were largely
anonymous.
 Specialization was de-emphasized. Man was encouraged to engage in as many pursuits as
he was interested in. As we shall see below, many prominent artists and intellectual figures
of the Renaissance engaged in several intellectual and artistic activities.

Prominent Renaissance Figures

Some of the artists, scientists, and philosophers of the Renaissance are mentioned under this sub-
section.
Petrarch (1304-1374) was an Italian poet and humanist. Petrarch was born in Arezzo, lived
in France and Italy, and travelled widely in Europe. He wrote in Latin and Italian, and helped to
develop Italian as a literary language. He helped to develop the sonnet form of poetry. In 1341,
Petrarch was made the first poet laureate of modern times.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. A
native of Florence, Da Vinci achieved fame in his life time mainly as a painter. His masterpieces in
this branch of arts were The Last Supper and Mona Lisa. The scientific treatises of Da Vinci were
not published in his lifetime. It is believed that, had they been published, they would have
revolutionized science and technology in the sixteenth century. He made important findings in
many scientific subjects, including meteorology, geology, hydraulics, and aerodynamics.
Desiderius Erasmus (1466?-1536) was the leading Renaissance intellectual of northern
Europe. Born in Rotterdam, he was ordained a priest in 1492. He later quit priesthood and became
a secular scholar. Among other things, Erasmus attacked corrupt practices in the Catholic Church.
He attacked the rationalism (reliance on logic) of Scholastic philosophers; he held that experience
should be a better guide to knowledge. He suggested that languages should first be taught through
conversation, and that teaching through grammar should come later (a practice that was adopted in
the mid-twentieth century). Erasmus was an advocate of the teaching of physical education.
Michelangelo (1475-1564), was another famous Florentine painter, sculptor, architect, and
poet of the Renaissance. He excelled in all these branches of art, but is best known as a sculptor and
painter. His masterpieces include David (a statue). Others were Pieta and The Last Judgement
(paintings).
The work of Renaissance artists and writers was made largely possible by the patronage of
rich and prominent persons. The Medici family in Florence probably deserves the greatest accolade
in this regard. The leading centre of humanistic studies in the Renaissance was the Platonic
Academy that was founded in Florence in 1462 by Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464), a banker. One
of his descendants, Lorenzo de Medici (dubbed Lorenzo the Magnificent, 1449-1492), a banker like
Cosimo but also the ruler of Florence, was the leading patron of artists and scholars of the
Renaissance. Among other efforts in this regard, Lorenzo de Medici commissioned Michelangelo
to produce The Last Judgement.
The sixteenth century is outside our period, but still within the Renaissance. So we will
extend our coverage to this century. Copernicus (1473-1543) was a Polish astronomer. He
theorized in the sixteenth century that the sun was the centre of the universe, and that the earth and
other planets revolved around it. This view is called the heliocentric (sun-centred) theory of the
universe. This view was quite revolutionary, though not original. Aristarchus of Samoa (see
Chapter 6) had adduced this view in the third century BCE. However, since the beginning of the
Christian era, the view that the earth was the centre of the universe (geocentric theory) had
prevailed. There was a scriptural basis for this view, and it became something of a dogma. The
Copernican theory was supported in the seventeenth century by the German astronomer Johannes
Kepler (1571-1630) and the Italian astronomer Galileo (1564-1642). It was suppressed by the
52
Catholic Church, which forced Galileo to recant his theory. But it eventually prevailed, from the
eighteenth century.
It was in the sixteenth century that spirit of the Renaissance manifested most markedly in
the westernmost parts of Europe. In Spain, Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) wrote Don Quixote
(Part I, 1605, Part II, 1615). A satire on mediaeval tales of chivalry, Don Quixote is regarded as one
of the masterpieces of world literature. Sixteenth century England, called Elizabethan England,
produced one of the geniuses of world literature, William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Recognized as
the greatest dramatist of all time, Shakespeare is also a highly ranked poet. His works have been
translated more than those of any other author. He is the most quoted author in history. He added
many words and phrases to the English language. Fittingly, his friend and fellow dramatist Ben
Jonson wrote that “He was not of an age but for all time”. Shakespeare is the greatest literary gift
of the Renaissance to mankind.
The spread of knowledge in the Renaissance was greatly facilitated in the middle of the
fifteenth century by the invention of the printing press. Johannes Gutenberg (1400?-1468), of the
German city of Mainz, is traditionally credited with the invention of the first printing press. This is
no longer certain: there are persuasive accounts indicating that there were earlier (even though less
efficient) inventions in Holland and France. However, it was Gutenberg’s invention that received
much greater attention, and enabled the people of his age to adopt the printed book in preference to
the handwritten or manuscript book. The printing press made possible the mass production of
books. Thus ideas of Renaissance scholars were easily disseminated to large audiences across
Europe.

Legacy

The intellectual ferment engendered by the interest in classical studies inclined many in the
Renaissance era to question established authorities. This helped to provide the impetus to the
Reformation, the movement of religious reform that shook Christendom in the sixteenth century.
Renaissance intellectuals promoted the idea that man could dominate nature. In so doing, they laid
the foundation for the development of modern science. Renaissance studies of the political systems
of Athens and of republican Rome convinced political thinkers that there was an alternative to both
feudalism and the strong monarchies that were emerging in the Late Middle Ages. In the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many political theorists were to use classical examples to
support proposals for freedom of thought and limited government. Finally, as evidenced by the
works of the artists and writers mentioned in the previous sub-section, the Renaissance left
mankind with numerous monuments of lasting beauty.

* * *

As we have seen, the Renaissance ushered in the next phase in the history of the world, which is
called the Modern Era. This chronology is based on the history of Europe, especially Western
Europe. The period began in the early sixteenth century (when Europe began on a grand scale to
conquer lands in Asia and the Americas) and ended in the late eighteenth century (when the French
Revolution ushered in a new era). A series of other great developments followed the Renaissance in
Europe, and they combined to enable European civilization to develop at a more rapid pace and
ultimately become more advanced than the leading civilizations of the Middle Ages (those of China
and the Islamic world). From the sixteenth century to the twentieth, Europeans conquered and
settled in many places in the other continents of the world; they conquered and ruled in many other
places in which they did not settle; and they undermined the sovereignty of all the other places they
did not conquer, rule, or occupy. As Europe expanded demographically and politically to other
parts of the world, Europeans spread Western civilization, which remains the dominant civilization
53
in the world today.
The following are some of the leading themes in the history of Europe during the Modern
Era: the Reformation (sixteenth century); the rise of absolute monarchs (seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries); the Scientific Revolution (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries); the Enlightenment
(eighteenth century); the Industrial Revolution (eighteenth century); and the French Revolution
(eighteenth century). These themes, with accounts of wars, of the rise and fall of several political
entities, are treated in the course EUROPE TO THE AGE OF REVOLUTION, 1500-1789.
Largely due to the efforts of Europeans, the following became the leading themes in the history of
the world during the same period: the European conquest of and establishment of foreign rule in
many countries of Asia (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries); the European conquest and
occupation of the Americas (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries); large-scale trade by sea between
Europe and Asia; the trans-Atlantic slave trade; and the European conquest and occupation of
Australia (eighteenth century). These themes are treated in courses on the histories of Asia, Africa,
and the Americas.

54
 APPENDIX
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

(Culled from Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation)

[The term] Seven Wonders of the World, [refers to] works of art and architecture regarded
by ancient Greek and Roman observers as the most extraordinary structures of antiquity.
Only one wonder of the seven, the pyramids of Egypt, still stands today.

Several lists of wonders were drawn up during antiquity. The list known today is
sometimes ascribed to Antipater of Sidon, a writer of the 2nd century BC and author of a
travel book. The wonders in this list were all located near the eastern coast of the
Mediterranean Sea and, except for the pyramids, were built in the four centuries from about
600 BC. The Seven Wonders are most often listed in the order in which they were built.

The Pyramids of Egypt were built on the west bank of the Nile River at Giza during the
4th Dynasty (about 2575 to about 2467 BC). The oldest of the seven wonders, the pyramids
are the only one remaining nearly intact today. Their white stone facing was later removed
for use as building material in Cairo. The largest of the pyramids is that of King Khufu,
which is sometimes known as the Great Pyramid. It covers an area of over 4.8 hectares (12
acres). According to the Greek historian Herodotus, ten years were required to prepare the
site and 100,000 labourers worked thereafter for 20 years to complete the pyramid, which
contains the king’s tomb. Some lists include only the Great Pyramid, rather than all the
pyramids (see Pyramids).

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, perhaps built by King Nebuchadnezzar II about 600
BC, were a mountain-like series of planted terraces. Ancient historians report that Babylon
at that time was dazzling in the splendour of its palace and temple buildings, fortification
walls, and paved processional ways. The Hanging Gardens consisted of several tiers of
platform terraces built upon arches and extending to a great height. Accounts of their height
range from about 24 m (80 ft) to a less reliable estimate of more than 90 m (300 ft). Trees
and colourful plants and flowers grew on the terraces, irrigated with water brought up from
the Euphrates River. Archaeologists have discovered remains of walls along the Euphrates
that may have belonged to the Hanging Gardens.

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was carved in the mid-5th century BC by the Greek
sculptor Phidias. The colossal statue was the central feature of the Temple of Zeus at
Olympia, the Greek sanctuary where the Olympic Games were held. It was considered to be
Phidias’s masterpiece. The seated figure of Zeus, king of the Greek gods, was 12 m (40 ft)

55
in height and made of ivory and gold. An earthquake probably levelled the temple in the 6th
century AD, and the statue was later taken to Constantinople, where a fire destroyed it.

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Asia Minor, built after 356 BC, combined great size
with elaborate ornamentation. Artemis, known as Diana to the Romans, was goddess of the
hunt. An imposing temple in her honour was built in Ephesus in what is now Turkey in the
6th century BC and rebuilt after it burned in 356 BC. Archaeologists estimate that the temple
measured 104 m (342 ft) in length and 50 m (164 ft) in width. Its 127 stone columns stood
more than 18 m (60 ft) tall. The temple was destroyed by the Goths in AD 262.

The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was a monumental marble tomb in Asia Minor built for
King Mausolus of Caria, who died in 353 BC. Queen Artemisia built the tomb in memory of
Mausolus, her brother and husband, at Halicarnassus in what is now south-western Turkey.
It was decorated by the leading sculptor of the age. An earthquake probably toppled the
structure, and its materials were later used as building material. Only fragments remain of
this tomb from which the word mausoleum derives.

The Colossus of Rhodes, a huge bronze statue of the Greek sun god Helios, was erected
about 280 BC to guard the entrance to the harbour at Rhodes, a Greek island off the coast of
Asia Minor. The statue stood about 32 m (105 ft) tall and according to legend, it straddled
the harbour. An earthquake destroyed it in 224 BC.

The Pharos of Alexandria was an ancient lighthouse located on an island in the harbour of
Alexandria, Egypt. The lighthouse, built about 280 BC during the reign of Ptolemy II, stood
more than 134 m (440 ft) tall—about as high as a 40-story building. A fire was kept burning
at its top to welcome sailors. Storms and an earthquake had damaged the lighthouse by 955
AD; an earthquake completely destroyed it during the 14th century.

Note: (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven wonders of the World Wonders of the

Modern World)

Other lists of wonders have been compiled since antiquity. One of them, probably compiled
in the sixteenth century, is called the Wonders of the Middle Ages, which implies that the
number is not limited to seven. Many of the structures on the list were built before the
Middle Ages. The list is as follows: Stonehenge, the Colosseum, the Catacombs of Kom el
Shoqafa, the Great Wall of China, the Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, the Hagia Sophia, and
the Leaning Tower of Pisa . Sometimes the following are added to the list: Taj Mahal, the
Cairo Citadel, the Ely Cathedral, and the Cluny Abbey.

56